Cumman na mBan's Military Pensions and Service Medals Campaign: A Fight for Equality, 1924-1958

My research focuses on the Irishwomen's paramilitary group, Cumann na mBan, and its campaign for state-awarded military pensions and service medals between 1924 and 1958. Exploring ways in which self-perception and notions of equality influenced Cumann na mBan's decision to campaign, my dissertation will analyse why its members resolved to campaign for the part they played in the Irish Revolution (1916-1923).

Using the recently released Military Service Pensions Collection (MSPC), my thesis will use pension applications, along with government debates, documents, and personal papers, to understand why Cumann na mBan was initially excluded from receiving compensation and recognition, why compensation and recognition was so important to Cumann na mBan, and the organization's decision to fight for inclusion in the Irish Free State's pensions and service medals scheme. I will also explore how Cumann na mBan's campaign challenged notions of Irish nationalism, military traditions, and the new Free State itself. Did gender play into Cumann na mBan's initial exclusion? Or was Cumann na mBan's exclusion from the legislation in 1924 for more practical reasons? What role did gender, identity, and equality play in Cumann na mBan's decision to campaign? Was monetary compensation more important for some members than service recognition? Why did the Fianna Fáil government include women in the pensions and service medals scheme in the early 1930s? Was Cumann na mBan a threat to the Fianna Fáil government and thus needed to be placated? How did Cumann na mBan's campaign disrupt the government's ideas regarding women's relationship to nationalism, military service, and to the state itself?



Literature focused on the post-conflict experiences of female veterans is scarce. There are even less studies on the experiences of female veterans after a guerrilla conflict. Lack of scholarship on the post-conflict life of guerrilla female veterans has been primarily due to a lack of source material. However, the MSPC provides the resources needed to conduct research concerning female veterans' post-conflict experiences. Thus, although the MSPC has only been used to track Cumann na mBan's activities between the years of 1916 and 1923, the collection has the potential to shed light on Cumann na mBan's post-revolution experiences. My dissertation will therefore become one of the first major studies to use the MSPC to focus on the post-revolution experiences of Cumann na mBan. It will occupy a space in the historiography of the Irish Revolution, the Free State, and Irish women's history that has yet to be filled. Further, a particularly relevant study to be conducted during the decade of Irish centenaries, my research will not only enhance scholarship's knowledge concerning female veterans' post-conflict experiences in Ireland. While the MSPC is an extremely unique collection and unparalleled internationally, by examining the experiences of female veterans after the Irish Revolution, I intend to structure my thesis so it will lend to a wider understanding of state's treatment of female veterans and serve as a case study for similar studies in other locations.