According to the University of Pennsylvania, Wollstonecraft's employment as a governess occured in Mitchelstown, Country Cork, Ireland (University of Pennsylvania). The location of Wollsontecraft's employment is important as English domination of Irih peoples resulted in numerous humanitarian crises. England had colonized Ireland beginning in the sixteenth century and enforced a plantation system in which the English forcibly removed people from their lands, removed them from administrative positions, forced them to pay rents to English landlords, and committed genocide in the process. Just prior to Wollstonecraft's birth, Ireland experienced a famine that was greater than that of the better-known mid-nineteenth century famine (Ireland's Great Hunger Museum). Given Wollsontecraft's concern with human rights, witnessing the brutality of English colonialism would have been a seminal moment in her life.
This is Mitchelstown Castle the home of Viscount Kingsborough and Wollstonecraft during her employment.
