A good place to start would be to contact the Irish Traditional Music Archive, but you will have to write to them as they do not answer online requests. There is a website for the ITMA Irish Traditional Music Archive which publishes a useful guide on studying Irish music Studying Irish Music

The Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick carries out a lot of research into various aspects of Irish and traditional music - you may be able to contact them for information, and possibly details of current reserch projects and theses. See their site atIWMC

The University of Cork has an online page of links about the role of women in music, but this is not especially concerned with traditional music. See UCC: Women in music

Good luck, and by the way I tried a google search for "women irish music" - not very helpful, but a lot about Cherish the Ladies!