Examining the historiography of women's education, the issue which dominates is understandably that of access. Access, or lack thereof, is a transnational construct which forms an over-arching framework through which the issue of historical gender equality in higher education can be interpreted and interrogated. Each of the seminal texts which examines the historiography of women's higher education uses access as a lens. While it is important to examine access in the historiography of women's education, a focus on access can obscure an interrogation of agency and particularly the role of social and intellectual networks in advancing key strategic objectives such as access. Against the backdrop of the higher education movements in both Ireland and the United States, this article examines the role of the Central Association of Irish Schoolmistresses (CAISM) in securing access for women to Trinity College Dublin and the concomitant role of the Woman's Education Association, Boston (WEA) in securing Harvard degrees for women. Chronicling the activities of the associations, both compensatory and innovative, it interrogates how the women at the centre of the associations straddled a conservative/progressive agenda in order to incrementally open up the privileges of a patriarchal space to women.