Women in the Irish Revolution
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Women in the Irish Revolution Mary Smith Anyone who knows anything and socially from the devastating effects of about history knows also that famine fifty years earlier. It was a predom- great social upheavals are impos- inately rural and agricultural society with sible without the feminine fer- a poorly developed industrial infrastructure, ment. - Karl Marx1 apart from Belfast, where the success of the ship-building industry in particular under- In the introduction to her book Un- pinned loyalty to union with Britain. In manageable Revolutionaries; women and the south, the emerging Catholic middle Irish nationalism, the historian Dr Margaret and upper classes were socially conservative, Ward states that: ‘...writing women into his- heavily influenced by, and reliant upon, the tory does not mean simply tagging them church3. They (correctly) perceived them- onto what we already know; rather, it forces selves as being ‘held back’ by the union with us to re-examine what is currently accepted, Britain and aspired to Home Rule. The Irish so that a whole people will eventually come Parliamentary Party or Home Rule Party into focus...’2 This article is an attempt to was the expression of their nationalist as- sharpen the focus on events relating to the pirations. Rising in Dublin 1916, by recounting the role played by women. What it seeks to do specifically is: Life for working class men and women was harsh. Poverty and emigration were rife; • briefly outline the role played by Dublin city had reputedly the worst slums women in the Easter Rising itself and in Europe. The minimum working age was the political events and movements eight years old. Casual work and unem- leading up to it ployment were high among men and worse among women. Accurate statistics are dif- • look at the relationship between ficult to come by but it is estimated that a the women’s suffrage movement and third of women with a job were employed as women involved in revolutionary na- servants for the middle and upper classes. tionalism. Single women emigrated in greater num- • briefly discuss the attitude to women’s bers than the men, usually alone. Married rights among the principal political or- women could expect a life of unremitting ganisations of the day drudgery with little access to health and ed- ucational services for their children. In 1911 • consider the element of class in both over a third of married women had seven the fight for national liberation and for children or more.4 Housing was charac- women’s rights terised by over-crowded tenements in which • trace the ‘closing down’ of the path to diseases like TB were at epidemic propor- women’s emancipation by the counter- tions. revolutionary current embodied in the new ’free state’. But change was in the air and Irish women were part of it. Improvements in ed- Background ucation and other social changes began to offer new opportunities for women, and this At the turn of the century the British colony in turn engendered expectation of, and de- of Ireland was still recovering economically mand for, more change. 1Letter to Kugelman, 12 Dec 1868 2Unmanageable Revolutionaries; women and Irish Nationalism, Margaret Ward. Brandon Press. 1983 3For an excellent account of this social process read Goretti Horgan’s ‘Changing women’s lives in Ireland’. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2001/isj2-091/horgan.htm 4UCC http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Ireland_society__economy_1870-1914 29 Times that were a changin’ strated, broke windows and attacked right- wing politicians, endured harassment and ...for the nationalists abuse, imprisonment, hunger-strikes and The closing years of the 19th century saw force-feeding. Between 1912 and 1914 there a rising confidence, fervour and agitation were 35 convictions of women for suffrage among Irish nationalists. The Land League activities. had been suppressed, and with it women’s The question of Home Rule for Ireland involvement in political life but the Gaelic became ever more pressing from 1912, when League, committed to reviving Irish lan- it was ’aired’ in the British parliament. It guage and culture emerged as a vibrant also raised questions around the issue of force on the political scene and was open to votes for women in Ireland. Home Rule women’s involvement in it. This was in stark strained relations between the northern and contrast to what was to become the politi- southern suffragists. The northern suffrag- cally dominant Irish Parliamentary Party for ists were implacably opposed to Home Rule, whom vote less women were an irrelevance. as were some of the privileged suffragists Democratic choice, restricted as it ever in the south, seeing their economic inter- was (and is) under capitalism, was worse in ests best served by maintaining the union Ireland than in Britain. No women had the with Britain. Most southern suffragists, right to vote (as in Britain) and only about while frustrated with the anti-feminism of 30 percent of the adult male population were the Home Rule Party, were sympathetic to eligible to do so; the property qualification the principle of some sort of autonomy for excluded the majority of men (the figure was Ireland, wherein they hoped the franchise 60 percent among British males). It would would be extended to the women of Ireland. take until 1918 for the vote to be extended By 1912 many suffragists’ meetings had to all men over 21 and to women over 30 become scenes of violence. This followed (with a property restriction). events surrounding the visit to Dublin in that year of Asquith, the British Prime Min- ...for suffragists ister. There was an incident; Asquith and Redmond had a hatchet thrown at them The demand for women’s rights was ex- by three militant suffragists from Britain, pressed in the demand for votes for women. over in Dublin for the occasion of Asquith’s The question of women’s suffrage in Ireland visit. No damage was done but the newspa- had been taken up as early as 1866, and by pers went ballistic. Then, as now, militancy 1911 there were some 24 women’s suffrag- was denounced and every opportunity was ist groups agitating with varying degrees of taken to denigrate the women’s cause, along militancy for the vote. with their actions. This helped inflame at- Early suffrage groups of women and men tacks on and harassment of suffragist meet- employed methods of campaigning that were ings and events. It was James Connolly who relatively conservative - petitioning, lobby- organised for the Irish Transport & General ing etc. But improved educational oppor- Workers Union (ITGWU) to protect their tunities for women and the rising militancy meetings and continued to insist that women of the suffragist movement in Britain, saw were entitled to fight for their demands in numbers of young women, mostly from the whatever way they chose, saying there was middle and upper classes, becoming increas- no action of theirs that he would not sup- ingly inspired and active in the demand for port. Husband and wife team Francis and equality with men, focused on the demand Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington (founders of the for equal voting rights. Irish Women’s Franchise League), were well The best of the Irish suffragists, and suf- known Dublin radicals - he was Ireland’s fragettes (a term coined by newspapers of most famous pacifist and she was Ireland’s the day for the women involved) fought with most famous suffragist. They also identified great courage and commitment to further themselves as socialists (they were members their aims; they campaigned and demon- of the tiny Socialist Party of Ireland) and 30 were delighted to have Connolly come down intended to rustle up support for conscrip- from Belfast to speak at suffrage meetings tion among the Irish to help the British fight they helped organise. the Boer war, and an official children’s pic- nic was intended as a way of getting the population out to cheer for her. The In- ...for the labour movement ghinidhe organised a ’Patriotic Children’s Irish labour too was coming into its own Treat’ instead, where they paraded 30,000 in terms of trades union organisation. Or- children around Dublin streets and then fed ganisers like Larkin and Connolly had hard- them goodies in a park. It was a treat for won but considerable success in getting Irish not cheering for the queen. For the next workers, particularly the hitherto unorgan- 14 years the Inghinidhe would continue to ised unskilled workers, into the unions - the work among Dublin’s poor (along with oth- ITGWU and also the Irish Women Workers ers) providing food, education and cultural Union (IWWU). Among the ranks of the un- opportunities, as well as political organi- skilled were young women workers in shops, sation, until they eventually morphed into factories, laundries and offices; some of these Cumann na mBan (The Women’s Council), would gravitate to the Irish Citizens Army a women’s auxiliary group to Volunteers who and socialist ideas. would be the main force in the 1916 Rising. Although many of the leading lights and founders of Inghinidhe were middle and up- Convergence per class women their commitment was very much to the poor and working people of There was a convergence of these influences Dublin. They attracted and organised com- in the struggle for progress in the Ireland of mitted and militant young working women. the early 1900s - a convergence of struggle Describing some of their early recruits He- for national freedom, for women’s suffrage len Maloney, editor of their paper Bean and for workers’ rights to organise in unions. na HEíreann, writes ‘Now there were some And although a minority in terms of num- young girls in Dublin, chiefly members of bers, those identifying as socialists, notably the Irish classes of Celtic Literary Society..