“AND PERHAPS, before literature dies, there will come a day when no-one notices an author’s gender or race but says only ‘I have just read an astonishing, unforgettable book by a fantastic human writer.’ I plan to live to see this.”

So writes Mary Dorcey in this collection of writings which reaches beyond the current experiences described to a future where such full equality of gender, race and class is achieved that they no longer spell marginalisation and exclusion from the cultural mainstream.

The 21 poets, fiction writers and playwrights in the book tell how they became the writers they are. Coming from the whole island of Ireland, they write in both Irish and English and are from a range of social backgrounds.

Most were born in the 1950s and benefited from the abolition of secondary school fees and this dilution of class educational privilege was significant.

Educators ignored women writers and society banned books by any progressive author, female or male. The writers grew up in a society that suppressed women. Frequently compounded by class prejudice at untold levels, its far-reaching consequences resulted in a profound lack of self-belief.

“Nothing in my childhood suggested I might become a writer … I expected that one day I would grow up and become a shop assistant or hairdresser,” writes Celia de Freine.

The writers describe their personal trajectories in becoming the authors they are today, how they learnt about women writers in the past and how they each individually broke into the world of literature, despite continuing societal prejudice.

Catherine Dunne relates a 2015 experience, where “novelist Catherine Nichols, disappointed at the silence from agents that greeted her latest manuscript, decided to send it out under a (male) pseudonym.” She received a very different response. The Brontes spring to mind.

This book is important in shedding light on the history of Irish women writers and the personal stories related represent a much greater circle. It also highlights areas of continuing failures by the cultural establishment towards them.

And it celebrates people like Jessie Lendennie and Eavan Boland, who played a crucial role in encouraging women to take on the fight and write.

It will be a long road before we reach the classless society anticipated by Mary Dorcey but books like this are steps along the way.

Published by Arlen House, £25.