Irish Divorce and Domestic Violence, 1857–1922

Ireland was excluded from the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which moved divorce proceedings from parliament to court. Whilst other areas of the Empire were encouraged to follow the 1857 reform, Ireland retained the costlier, lengthier and more socially and gender biased parliamentary process. Louisa Westropp's divorce of 1886 was the first divorce granted by Westminster to an Irishwoman and established legal precedent in applying case law, initially concerning domestic violence, derived in the divorce court to parliament. The result was an increase in Irish parliamentary divorce petitions, particularly from women, who utilised an augmenting definition of marital cruelty to secure a permanent release from spousal abuse.     

The ‘Wrongs’ of Women: Sex and Sexuality in Irish American Women's Writing

A key trait distinguishing the writing of Irish American women from that of their male counterparts is a strong feminist bent often expressed in stories featuring sex and sexuality. In ignoring these characteristics, Irish studies scholars have disregarded a trait established by Irish women writers in oral traditions as early as 600 and in written English since 1685. Much of this material was categorized as the ‘Wrongs of Woman’, a phrase used to describe stories about physical and sexual abuse. These same themes can be traced in the writing of Irish American women since the late nineteenth century. By focusing on these ‘wrongs’, Irish American women have not only carried on the tradition begun by their foremothers; they have also battled patriarchal bonds on three fronts: religion, which created such bonds; society, which reinforced them; and politics, which tries to recreate and re-impose them. A complete understanding of Irish American writing therefore depends on recognizing and adding the contributions of these women to the definition of the literature. This essay defines that cohort, then provides a historically contextualized examination of their literary attempts to address the ‘wrongs’ of women inflicted by religion, society and politics from 1899 to the present. In so doing, this discussion demonstrates the role played by Irish American women writers in promoting, protecting and perpetuating the rights of women in the United States and around the world.     

The CPGB,the Connolly Association and Irish communism, 1945–1962

This article examines the relationship between the Communist Party of Great Britain and Irish communists in both Ireland and Britain in the post-war era. It argues that the British party’s strategic interest in Ireland gradually waned as it became apparent that Irish communism would remain divided by the border. The article also argues how, in Britain, competition between the nationalist Anti-Partition League and the communist dominated Connolly Association led the latter to abandon cold war sectarianism and to adopt a ‘broad strategy’ championing civil rights in Northern Ireland. The article draws out the key role played by Charles Desmond Greaves in this process, whilst noting the importance of factionalism and external factors, notably the Irish Republican Army’s Border Campaign.     

Compensating Irish Female Revolutionaries, 1916–1923

The newly released Irish Military Service Pensions Collection offers the most comprehensive opportunity to examine the role of women in the Irish revolution (1916–23) or in any comparable nationalist revolution. It is also an extremely useful source of evidence for an emerging historiographical trend of tracing the post-revolutionary lives of female veterans by examining the award of service pensions to them by that state. This article will examine the role played by gender in the award of such pensions, the economic and financial significance of them in a state that had underdeveloped welfare provision and the importance of them as a symbolic recognition of women's roles in helping to achieve Irish independence. It also compares the post-conflict experience of Irish female revolutionary veterans with women who were involved in comparable international military conflicts.     

International and Modern Ideals in Irish Female Medical Missionary Activity, 1937–1962

ABSTRACT

The Medical Missionaries of Mary are an Irish Catholic missionary congregation founded in 1937 by Marie Martin. From the outset the congregation embodied a new sense of optimism that was reflected in its aspirations of modernity and internationalism. This paper explores the development of the Medical Missionaries of Mary as an international missionary network. It argues that whilst in its vision and foundation the congregation projected its work as international and modern, the reality was more complex. The missionaries practised their own distinct brand of maternity medicine that incorporated Irish medical thought, Catholic social teachings, and the demands of the local women. This paper will consider how this unique blend of maternity medicine was projected from Ireland and refashioned within the context of the mission.     

The Law and Politics of Marital Rape in England, 1945–1994

This article examines the ending of the marital rape exemption in England. It describes the unresponsiveness of the political and legal establishment on the issue from the war to the mid-1970s. The arguments and campaigns that feminists and others advanced against the rule from the 1970s onwards are analysed, together with the political and legal reaction to this campaign. Next, the Parliamentary and legal debates over the rule in the 1980s are discussed: a story of inertia, even hostility, towards such campaigning. Finally, the article considers the demise of the exemption in the 1990s. The article presents a nuanced account of this change, which was both vigorously contested and highly contingent. It also suggests that legal protection from ‘the rapist who pays the rent’, and the campaign to achieve this, deserve appropriate recognition within the story of feminist activism in the late twentieth century.     

Women on the Move: a review of the historiography of Irish emigration to the USA, 1750–1900

Emigration was an integral part of Irish life in the nineteenth century and much of that experience was characterised by banishment, exile and loneliness. This article reviews the historiography of Irish emigration to America and focuses on Irish women's unique experience of emigration, specifically looking at their reasons for leaving, the mechanics of departure and the kind of life that awaited them in the USA. This interpretation places gender at the centre of the narrative and argues that Irish emigrant women were agents of their own lives and not secondary agents and also that, by the end of the nineteenth century, personal ambition and a desire to improve and progress their own lives was as influential with them as the financial imperative to assist family and friends in the USA and Ireland.     

Irish Women’s Networks on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, 1864–1922

This article explores the ethnic incorporation of Irish women on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island from 1864, when the gold rushes began, until the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The central argument is that these newcomers did not choose ethnic solidarity as a means to pursue their goals and, for most, an ethnic or religious category sufficed in an environment where local communities, churches, trade unions, kinship ties and non‐ethnic political parties had far more social relevance. The small‐scale structure of West Coast localities, the relative economic homogeneity of its inhabitants and the absence of entrenched anti‐Irish elites militated against the rise of sectarian animosities and the maturation of intensified ethnic consciousness. As a consequence, Irish women did not construct and sustain informal social networks based on ‘principles of ethnic categorisation’ in which they distributed resources and channelled interaction among group members.     

Western Women Missionaries and their Japanese Female Charges, 1870–1890

In the past ten years much research has been published on the issue of nineteenth‐century Western women (missionaries) and their imperialist attitudes toward the Asian populations they came in contact with when they travelled to, or were sent by the missions to proselytise in China, India or Korea. The author discusses the relationship between Western women missionaries and Japanese girls during the 1870s and 1880s, focusing in particular on the educational work undertaken by women missionaries and on the values they tried to impart to Japanese girls in the girls’ schools they founded. The author shows that women missionaries could not easily discard the patriarchal and imperial notions they had come to believe in. She also argues, however, that the environment they created in Japan helped some girls to voice their hopes for a society in which their understanding of Japanese women’s worth was recognised.     

Women as Active Citizens: Glasgow and Edinburgh c.1918–1939

This article examines evidence of active political engagement by women in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the inter-war years of the twentieth century. While discussing the wider context of women's political activities in this period, in terms of party politics and the range of women's organisations in existence, it focuses in particular on Women Citizens’ Associations, Societies for Equal Citizenship and Co-operative Women's Guild branches. Comparing interventions by such women's organisations in the two cities around the selected themes of political representation, housing, ‘moral and social hygiene’, and contraception, the article demonstrates that women's organisations participated in public debates and campaigns to advance what they perceived as women's interests. Temporary alliances around issues such as the regulation of prostitution and provision of contraceptive advice brought together a range of women's organisations, but class differences in perspectives became increasingly apparent in this period, particularly in Glasgow. The issues addressed by women's organisations covered the spectrum of ‘equal rights’ and ‘welfare feminism’, although they did not necessarily identify as feminist. Common to all organisations, however, was a commitment to active citizenship, with women becoming a recognised part of local political networks in this period, although they remained poorly represented in parliament.     

The Australian Women’s National League and Democracy, 1904–1921

The Australian Women’s National League was founded in response to the gaining of the federal franchise by Australian women. It founders were conservative elite women whose politics were anti‐democratic, laissez faire and opposed to the public exercise of women’s citizenship. The League’s interaction with democracy proved to be mutually constitutive. The League’s crude anti‐socialist ideology and its capacity for electoral organisation gave the AWNL an impact on the content and conduct of Australian democracy which far exceeded that made by other groupings of political women. And the League’s platforms and programmes slowly broadened to include state action in progressive and even feminist causes. But its continuing refusal to endorse a public role for political women limited the League’s ability to appeal to a new generation of progressive women.     

Women and trade unions 1870–1920: The quandary of the reformer

For the first two decades of the twentieth century, syndicalism (revolutionary trade unionism) was the most vigorous of the left's challenges to the capitalist order in many parts of the world. In Britain, syndicalism was reckoned to have had most impact in the South Wales coalfield but there have been no detailed studies of its influence in other British coalfields. This article explores the various ways in which syndicalism's influence can be gauged in the Durham coalfield, comparing it with the South Wales experience. While the two coalfields had a good deal in common, a number of considerations, most importantly relating to the agency of syndicalists on the one hand and Independent Labour Party (ILP) activists on the other, militated against syndicalism's relative influence in Durham.