An underground car park on Virginia Street, London E1 today marks the spot where the eighteenth-century Irish population of Wapping and Whitechapel used to discreetly attend religious services in a Roman Catholic mission chapel.

This plaque on the side of Newington Green Primary School records the presence of one of Stoke Newington’s leading intellectual dissenters – that pioneering champion of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). For two years, she tried to earn a living by running a girls’ school on this site. When the school failed, she worked in Ireland as a governess – an experience which influenced her groundbreaking work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Curiosity about London's connections with Ireland had prompted me to search The London Archives' online catalogue for all entries containing the word "Irish". That led to a file titled "Irish Distressed Ladies' Fund" which I automatically assumed was one of the many philanthropic ventures formed in London over the years in support of Ireland's poor and peasant populations. It turned out to be something very different indeed.