Description: This paper examines a sample of material that provides insight into the contribution of Catholic religious teaching orders of Sisters, to education in Ireland in the period 1870-2005. The paper also examines the construction and management of convent schooling. The puporse of the paper is to add to discourse which has analysed the particular roles that certain religious teaching orders filled by educating girls, opening higher education to Catholic women, and expanding career opportunities to females. The authors bring original perspectives and materials to research on women religious in education - and in particular to the nature of 'convent' education - by drawing on recently gathered visual and oral materials which they are currently using to create a digital archive. In the paper the authors expand on traditional readings of the role of teaching orders of Sisters in society. Such studies typically have offered analytical studies of religious women in teaching/education, but have not charted the particular changes experienced by women religious themselves, nor has there been any affort to examine the 'convent' as a locus of religious and academic activity - and a significant local landmark. Here we look at social change, educational change and - in a fresh way - some iconic school buildings. This allows a rich and nuanced reading of ways in which Sisters engaged in education whilst also experiencing huge change. In addition, it will be possible to provide commentary on how pupils experienced change in the management and delivery of education at convent schools in the period under review, by reviewing images of convents and of convent education. The unique status of convent buildings in Ireland will be reviewed, as this is a feature of the authors' work. Methodology: The authors place their research within the context of existing research in the field of the history of Catholic religious orders in the management and delivery of education. The paper therefore includes reference to research on convent education, the provision of 'academic' and vocational education by different religious orders, and existing reseach on school buildings and school architecture. The paper then provides a close analyses of original - and heretofore unused - data from a digital archive currently under construction by the authors. Interviews with some senior members/elderly of teaching orders are included for examination, and images of convent school buildings are scrutinised. Conclusions: The paper will comment on ways in which 'histories' of convent education have been transmitted, and will develop a critical commentary on the significance of the convent school as a locus of educational activity and pioneering change - and also the convent school as a partiuclar type of school architecture - for example, the convent school 'signified' its mission in many architectual features (chapel; cloister; stained-glass windows; religious iconography; statues; shrines; arches &c).