Nationalisme, féminisme En Irlande

struggled to be accepted on equal terms by the Irish labour movement and among nationalists. Their experience holds many lessons for today's socialists and feminists.

English rule in Ireland was established in the early 17th century. A feature of this rule soon became the persecution of the native Catholic population. A Catholic revolt in 1641 was followed eight years later by Cromwell's re-conquest of Ireland, in which Catholics were forcefully driven off their land. This was further reinforced in 1695, when penal laws began to be introduced to strengthen Protestant rule.

The first uprising which aimed to establish an Irish republic took place in 1798, uniting Catholics with some Protestants under the banner of the United Irishmen. This was followed two years later by the union of Ireland with Britain under direct rule from a single Parliament, at Westminster.

The famine of 1845-49 saw millions of Irish people starve to death, or leave the country to escape starvation. Thirty years later, a "land war" raged between tenants and farmers*1. The Irish National Land League, which fought for the rights of the tenants and against evictions had, by the end of the 1870s, 200,000 members organised in 1,000 branches*2.

In 1900, Maud Gonne set up Inghinidhe (or Inine) na hEireann (meaning "the daughters of Erin"). The motivation for the group's establishment can be seen in Maud Gonne's description of the first meeting as "a meeting of all the girls who, like myself, resented being excluded, as women, from national organisations"*6. The organisation grew rapidly, establishing branches in Limerick (1901) and Cork (1902)*7.

Maud Gonne was the daughter of a British Army officer who had been involved in the Irish National Land League in the 1880s, believing that "the Irish masses would rally around the cause of national freedom only if they believed it would guarantee them permanent possession of the farms they tilled"*8. She became convinced of the importance of mobilising women into the struggle for Irish independence, since "without the participation of her women, Mother Ireland was going into battle with one arm tied behind her back"*9.

It was a meeting of Inine na hEireann which planned the publication of a newspaper specifically aimed at women. Bean na hEireann (meaning "women of Ireland"), the first women's newspaper in Ireland, was launched in November 1908. With Helena Moloney as editor, the paper's expressed aim was "to be a women's paper, advocating militancy, Irish separatism and feminism'"*10. 1908 also saw the launch of the Irish Women's Franchise League, set up by Hanna and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington to campaign in Ireland for women's suffrage. In 1912 it began publication of the Irish Citizen, a suffrage weekly. Until, and indeed after, the appearance of the Irish Citizen, suffragist women were regular contributors to the columns of Bean na hEireann.

Bean na hEireann provided a forum for debate between various of the newly emerging women's groups. Writers put forward arguments over priorities for Irish women: which was more important, national independence or winning the vote for women?

Suffragists felt that women should not simply champion the cause of Irish independence if in an independent Ireland they remained disenfranchised second-class citizens, "mere camp-followers and parasites of public life"*12. Conversely, nationalist women believed that women's suffrage whilst Ireland remained under British rule would not liberate Irish women, but would simply provide women with a say in a parliament whose legitimacy they did not recognise. Republican women appealed to supporters of women's suffrage to join their struggle against British rule:

"Hitch your wagon to a star. Do not work for the right to share in the government of that nation that holds Ireland enslaved, but work to procure for our sex the rights of free citizenship in an independent Ireland."*13

For some republican women, it was also becoming clearer that there were other issues besides votes for women and freedom from British rule, in particular the appalling conditions of poverty endured by the Irish majority. It was perhaps not convincing that this could be entirely blamed on British rule. By 1910, Constance Markievicz was beginning to address these questions, and to become more attracted to socialism:

"What was the best way to tackle the problems of huge unemployment, exhausted workers, wages at starvation level and wretched accommodation? Nationalism alone might not be the answer, since in England the same conditions existed although to a much lesser extent."*14

The appeal of socialism and of the labour movement for Irish women has to be seen in the light of the attitudes of labour movement leaders to questions of women's liberation, in comparison with other sections of the nationalist movement.

The Irish - or Home Rule - Party had been reunited in 1900 after a split precipitated by allegations of adultery against its leader Charles Stuart Parnell*15. A Party of Irish members of the Westminster Parliament, it was anti-feminist, attracting criticism on this score from Francis Sheehy-Skeffington*16 and others. In 1912, holding the balance of power in Parliament on this issue, Irish Party MPs defeated the Conciliation Bill - legislation which would have granted limited suffrage to women, with a property qualification.*17 In July 1912, Prime Minister Asquith - "that large obstacle to women's suffrage in England"*18 - visited Dublin, and the Irish Women's Franchise League organised protests. At one of these, at a meeting addressed by Irish Party leader John Redmond, feminist protectors were attacked by stewards and Home Rule supporters*19.

Sinn Fein (meaning "we ourselves") had been founded in 1908 by Arther Griffith, uniting the various clubs in the cause of Irish independence, and hoping also to accommodate republicans*20. It appeared that Sinn Fein did not oppose the demands of women in the way that the Irish Party did, and indeed that nationalist women found it a fairly accessible movement in which to be involved. However, what support it gave to women's rights could perhaps be considered inadequate:

"Sinn Fein was not actively anti-feminist; in fact it was a fond tenet recently among nationalist women that in the nationalist movement women were treated with an equal seriousness and 'a greater courtesy' than the men... Sinn Fein women were elected frequently to the executive.

Nonetheless, support for women's rights, which at this time centred on getting the vote, was never one of Sinn Fein's priorities."*21

Arthur

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