HERSTORY: RTÉ to air series of original documentaries celebrating "Ireland's great female trailblazers"
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HERSTORY: RTÉ to air series of original documentaries celebrating "Ireland's great female trailblazers"

IRELAND'S STATE broadcaster is preparing to release a series of documentaries celebrating 'Ireland's great female trailblazers' in the run-up to Inernational Women's Day.

"HERSTORY: Ireland's EPIC Women tells the stories of some of Ireland’s most remarkable pioneers in the fields of business, politics, science, the arts, aviation and technology", the broadcaster announced in a statement detailing what to expect from the upcoming series.

RTÉ have partnered with EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the award-winning Underground Films in order to bring some of the most inspiring stories of Ireland's historical women to life.

Record-setter and daredevil aviator Lady Mary Heath, pioneer computer programmer Kay McNulty, Royal Ballet founder Ninette de Valois and "the most dangerous woman in America", activist Mother Jones, are among the women who will be celebrated in the series.

One of the most highly-anticipated and fascinating stories set to be told in HERSTORY is that of Dr James Barry, a Cork native who lived as a man in part to pursue a medical career, and who performed one of the world's first succesful caesarean section in which both mother and baby survived.

An 18-part podcast series will tell 18 additional inspirational stories from trailblazing Irish women, and six animation teams from across the country have created an animation series which will tell, among others, the story of Mary Elmes, a Cork woman who saved hundreds of Jewish children during World War 2.

Light festivals and museum exhibitions have also been commissioned to take place over the next month, with RTÉ describing the campaign as celebrating "women who broke boundaries but whose stories never made the history books".