A Gendered Revolution: The Ideology, Activism, and Perception of Ireland's Republican Women, 1910-1925

Since 1980s greater academic attention has been given to women in the Irish revolutionary period (1910-1925). Limited available sources, pioneers like Margaret Ward mostly produced macro-level studies that illuminated women's long-obfuscated contributions to Ireland's nationalist and feminist movements. Early work often portrayed these ideologies as opposed, Senia Paseta asserts that cooperation was overwhelmingly the norm, arguing that women's experience and activism can only be understood when evaluated through concepts intelligible to early-20th century Irishwomen themselves. Scholars have begun examining lesser-known women at a micro-level, illuminating previously-obscured aspects of women's experience, like gender-based and sexual violence. Some research evaluates women's activism through a contemporary lens. There is need for the type of context-sensitive research modeled by Paseta at the macro and micro level given that historians' descriptions of women's activism have changed little in 20 years. Despite the oft-emphasized potential of newly-available archives like the Military Service Pensions Collection to catalyze this change, a systematic assessment of women in the MSPC is yet to emerge. The project approaches the MSPC microhistorically, asking what it meant to be a republican woman: IDEOLOGY-Why did women get involved in the republican movement? To what extent were official Cumann na mBan ideology, structure, and function reflected in the daily experience of a typical republican woman? ACTIVISM-What was the nature and extent of women's republican activism? Were women frequently the targets of violence due to their work in the movement? Was anything about this violence specific to their sex? PERCEPTION-How did women conceptualize their involvement in the republican movement during/after the revolution? Did they see their activism as distinct to them as women? What were others' (eg republican men, the Irish state) contemporary and subsequent perceptions of women's republicanism? This detailed analysis contributes to scholarship on gender roles in wartime. For scholars of political violence, this project is a valuable meso-level case study (eg within a larger theory of terrorism, civil war, or collateral damage), as there is little substantial work on women in irregular warfare. Methodology: 1) I will conduct a series of micro-studies centered on republican women in urban and rural environments in Ireland's 4 provinces 1910-1925. Preliminary research suggests the following are suitable candidates: Dublin City, Offaly, and Longford (Leinster); Cork City, Kilbrittain (Cork), and Waterford (Munster); Galway City and Mayo (Connacht); and Belfast, Derry/Londonderry, Dromore (Tyrone), and Monaghan (Ulster). To be adequately representative, locations were chosen to capture diversity of experience eg degree of violence, population demographics, historiographical representation, and republican activity. Driven by close readings of relevant MSPC files, case studies will draw heavily from mostly-retrospective applicant testimony and supporting evidence from qualified witnesses. This qualitative reconstruction of women's experience will be bolstered by the collection of quantitative data from applicants' award certificates, organizational membership rolls and brigade activity reports. To contextualize and enrich this understanding, other primary sources - the Bureau of Military History, memoirs and papers (eg Lil Conlon, Sighle Humphreys, Maire Comerford, Mary MacSwiney), newspapers and official publications (eg An tÓglach, Irish Citizen) will be consulted. 2) Case studies will be analyzed. A responsibility/risk framework will be applied, identifying the responsibilities the typical woman had and the risks she was exposed to as a result. For each cohort, women's and men's testimony will be evaluated to illuminate (gendered) perceptions of this activism. 3) the sample will be analyzed to determine if micro-level phenomena persist