Irish Gymnasts on Tour: The Women's League and Women's Exercise in 1940s Ireland

Abstract: In 1949 the Irish branch of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty travelled to Stockholm, Sweden to take part in the second annual Lingiad Festival. Created the previous decade to celebrate the gymnastic system of Per Henrik Ling established in the early nineteenth-century, the Festival was a multisporting cultural event open to groups from around the world. One such group was the Women’s League of Health and Beauty. Founded in London in 1930 by the Irish-born Mary Bagot Stack, the League marked the decade’s most expansive form of exercise for women. Owing to the League’s Irish connection, the first League branch came to Belfast in 1930 and was followed by a Dublin branch some years later. Open to women across the life cycle, the League was targeted at both the working woman and the stay-at-home mother. Where previous studies have examined the creation of the League in Ireland, this piece focuses on the League’s appearance at the 1949 Lingiad. Despite numerous appeals for governm

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Studies in Arts and Humanities ; 7 (2021) 1 ; 131-152

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Sport

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2021
• Creator: Heffernan, Conor

Further information

• DOI: 10.18193/sah.v7i1.205
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022090115211602556683
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:54 PM CET