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OUR HISTORY |
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Constance Markievicz and the other women who fought in the Easter Rising 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. By Janine Booth. |
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 farmers1. 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 branches2.
In the 1890s, a movement began to revitalise Gaelic culture. In 1893, Douglas Hyde founded the Gaelic League3. With organisations such as the Celtic Literary Society and the Irish National League both barring women from membership - Maud Gonne applied to join both and was refused4 - the Gaelic League was the first nationalist society to accept women as members on the same terms as men5.
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 Parnell15. A Party of Irish members of the Westminster Parliament, it was anti-feminist, attracting criticism on this score from Francis Sheehy-Skeffington16 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 supporters19.
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 republicans20. 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 Griffith himself had little time for the feminist cause. He also showed great hostility to the labour movement - he "was virulent in his opposition to Larkin and labour generally, and was hardly more accommodating on women's issues'"22. He had opposed higher wages for factory workers, claiming that this would hold back the growth of Irish industry23. At the time of the Dublin Lockout in 1913, Griffith called for the strikers to be bayoneted, and Sinn Fein denounced the SS "Hare", which brought food aid from the British labour movement to the locked out Irish workers, because its cargo was made up of non-Irish goods24.
It was in James Connolly and Jim Larkin, that the Irish labour movement possessed the two leaders who gave the most commitment and vocal support to women's aspirations of all male political figures.
Connolly was born of Irish parents in Edinburgh in 186825. After involvement in the British Marxist movement in the early 1890s, he moved to Ireland and established the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896 26. In his analysis of capitalism, Connolly described women's position: "The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave."27
He seems to have been widely recognised as a champion of women's rights. Francis and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, founders of the Irish Women's Franchise League, described Connolly in the Irish Citizen as "the soundest and most thoroughgoing feminist among all the Irish labour men"28. Connolly argued forcefully in support of women's rights, and urged the labour movement to actively take up this support.
"None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what is a fetter. In its march towards freedom, the working class of Ireland must cheer on the efforts of those women who, feeling on their souls and bodies the fetters of the ages, have arisen to strike them off."29
In practice too, Connolly was known for his support of working class women's struggles. He led a strike movement of Belfast mill-girls in 1911, protesting at the system of petty fines imposed by employers to drive down wages30.
Jim Larkin was a trade union organiser who, having begun his union activity in Liverpool, moved on to Belfast and then Dublin. Larkin advocated women's rights, and, like Connolly, included in political practice work to organise women. Together with his sister Delia, Larkin established the Irish Women Workers' Union in September 191131.
How did the attitudes of the various political movements to women, located within the dynamic of the struggles taking place, affect the relationship between the labour movement and the feminist movement? Connolly believed that these factors were bringing feminism and labour closer together towards a common cause. He wrote in 1915 that:
"The politicians' breach of faith with the women, a breach of which all parties were equally culpable, the long-continued struggle, the ever-spreading wave of martyrdom of the militant women of Great Britain and Ireland, and the spread amongst the active spirits of the labour movement of an appreciation of the genuineness of the women's longings for freedom, as of their courage in fighting for it, produced an almost incalculable effect for good upon the relations between the two movements."32
It is interesting to note that Connolly, in referring to "politicians", clearly excludes the labour movement and its leaders from the meaning of this term. He appears to be drawing a line between bourgeois politicians - upon whom women could not rely - and the movement of the workers. Most significantly, though, Connolly identifies struggle as the arena in which labour and feminism find common ground. Unity between women and male workers is something which is not theorised into existence, but develops from mutual experience of the processes of struggle. This experience includes on both sides "martyrdom", "courage", "fighting" - difficult and laudable qualities which engender respect and understanding between different movements which demonstrate these qualities.
The events of the Dublin Lockout of 1913 are a good vantage point from which to assess the tensions between feminism and labour. From 1907 onwards, Jim Larkin had been building the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. By 1913, the union had 10,000 members, and had achieved significant increases in the standard of living for workers in Dublin33.
On 2 September 1913, over 400 firms - working together through the Employers' Federation - announced a general lockout of their workers. Employees were issued with a statement to sign, pledging themselves to resign membership of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (or never to join it) and to obey all instructions from their bosses34. In opposition to the employers' actions, support for the union seemed to be uncompromising, not only from its own members, but from members of 28 other trade unions35.
Food provision for the locked-out workers was organised in Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the union. Constance Markievicz was appointed to administer the huge operation. Women from the suffrage movement were actively involved, and it is reported that they maintained their profile as suffrage campaigners during their volunteer work, wearing the badges of the Irish Women's Franchise League36.
It would be mistaken, however, to imply that women's involvement in the Lockout was restricted to the traditional, "feminine" role of cook. Fox reports that on 13 September 1913, a women workers' demonstration marched to Inchicore, site of a tram garage which was a Larkin stronghold, held up tramway traffic37. It seems also that women took an active part in mass pickets and demonstrations.
As the locked-out workers and their families suffered deeper financial hardship, concern was heightened about the welfare of their children. In late October, social worker and feminist Dora Montefiori suggested that children who were suffering a great deal might be sent to stay with families in England38. However, the Catholic Church reacted by denouncing the plan for fear of the children's religion being undermined. Archbishop Walsh attacked the mothering qualities of women who were prepared to allow their children to be cared for in England whilst they fought on against the employers:
"In a rather hysterical outburst he asked the mothers of the children if they had 'abandoned their faith'. He answered his rhetorical question with a 'surely not', and claimed that 'they can no longer be held worthy of the name of Catholic mothers if they so forget that duty as to send away their children to be cared for in a strange land..."39
The Church organised to physically prevent the children leaving Ireland.
Priests seized children from the Corporation Baths where they were being washed in preparation for their departure. Each evening, priests led many Catholics in pickets of Dublin Quays40.
During the Lockout, Jim Larkin travelled to England, Scotland and Wales to campaign for support from the British labour movement for the Dublin workers. Donations of food and money were generous - more than £100,000 was raised for the fund41 - but a special conference of the Trades Union Congress voted down a proposal for sympathetic strike action. Many analysts at the time and since have blamed this decision for the eventual defeat of the locked-out workers.
"As James Connolly put it bitterly at the time: where the British working class organisation could have delivered a decisive blow at the employers, they held their hand, contenting themselves with giving aid in money and food, where they could not possibly deal a comparable blow at the ruling class."42
The role played by the women who were active during the Lockout did not go unappreciated by the labour movement leaders. In 1916, Constance Markievicz was made an Honorary Member of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, when the union and the Irish Citizen Army presented her with an address commending her relief efforts during the Lockout43.
Involvement in the Lockout proved to be an educational process for the women themselves. Levenson claims that "it was during this struggle that Constance [Markievicz] learned from James Connolly that national freedom would be worthless without the overthrow of the exploiting class."44
And those women who disagreed over the relative priorities of nationalism and women's suffrage, were able to work together in support of labour.
"The labour movement was proving to be a meeting-ground for women who, though always amicable, were divided on the issue of whether national independence or the franchise should come first."45
Constance Markievicz was by this time living in Surrey House in Dublin, which she used as an organisational base for campaigners in the labour, suffrage and republican movements46. Despite conflicts, there was a common ground developing between these three movements which enabled them to work together so closely.
Simply "working together" might not necessarily overcome differences of political opinion. However, such united action could not have happened without political discussion and the development of the political ideas of those involved. Farrell, for example, considers the effect on Constance Markievicz of her involvement and interest in the labour movement:
"It was an interest that brought her to serve soup in Liberty Hall during the dark days of the 1913 strike and mixed a strong socialist strain into her synthesis of nationalism and feminism."47
A further development during the Lockout was the formation of the Irish Citizen Army, "a workers' militia to defend the working class against the police"48. The proposal to form a Citizen Army was put forward by James Connolly at a strike meeting in Beresford Place, Dublin, in November 191349.
Part of the motivation would surely have been the workers' experience of police brutality, notably a baton charge in Sackville Street after Jim Larkin had delivered a brief speech from a window of the Imperial Hotel on Sunday 31 August. Around 500 people were treated in hospital for their injuries50. A further influence was that, in the North Eastern county of Ulster, an armed body called the Ulster Volunteer Force was being built, with the aim of armed resistance to any move to create a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. By this time, it already had around 50,000 members51. Connolly asked: "Why should we not train and drill our men in Dublin as they are doing in Ulster?"52
The Irish Citizen Army was to be organised by Captain Jack White. It was properly established on Sunday 23 November, when Captain White enlisted men and women to the Army, and began to organise drilling and training.53
Two days later, the Irish National Volunteers was formed, led by Eoin MacNeill, and prompted by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The Volunteers drew their membership from the more "moderate" nationalists of Sinn Fein and the Gaelic Leagues54. The National Volunteers was a straightforwardly nationalist force, designed to defend the Home Rule Bill, and without the labour movement association of the Irish Citizen Army. Growing rapidly at first, it was later to split over support for Britain in the First World War.
The third stated objective of the Volunteers was "To unite... Irishmen of every creed and of every party and class"55. Thus excluded, women who sought involvement in the Volunteers formed a separate women's branch, Cumann na mBan (meaning "women's society") As Haverty outlines, it appears that even having shown this level of commitment, the women were not afforded equal treatment:
"The Volunteers... had a macho ethos... The members of Cumann na mBan at this stage tended to be sisters, wives, sweethearts, etc. of the Volunteers, and the Volunteers stated in no uncertain terms that their role was what they themselves saw it as, by and large - an auxiliary branch. They could be helpmeets, nurses, messengers, fund-raisers for arms and equipment, but they would have no voice."56
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington protested the exclusion of women from the Volunteers, and at the same time warned against its militarist ethos. In an open letter to Thomas MacDonagh of the Volunteers57, Sheehy-Skeffington expressed his deeply-felt repugnance at killing, and appealed that the aims of the Volunteers - with which he was entirely in sympathy - could perhaps be fought for without recourse to militarism.
Sheehy-Skeffington did not make these two points separately, but drew a link between the exclusion of women and the dangerous (in his view) inclination towards militarism:
"It is in the highest degree significant that women are left out. Why are they left out? Consider carefully why; and when you have found and clearly expressed the reason why women cannot be asked to enrol in this movement, you will be close to the reactionary element in the movement itself.''58
Although he does not say so explicitly, but rather by suggestion, Sheehy-Skeffington appears to imply that a military approach in itself prevents the involvement of women. His conviction of a definitive link between the exclusion of women and the commitment to military struggle of the Irish National Volunteers should be questioned.
It is useful to consider comparisons in this respect between the Irish National Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army. In the Citizen Army, women and men drilled together, and took first aid classes together. Inine na hEireann women joined the Citizen Army, including in their ranks Nellie Gifford, Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen, Kathleen Lynn, Constance Markievicz and Rosie Hackett59. It would be disingenuous to suggest that equal numbers of men and women took part in the Citizen Army on equal terms. However, the contrast of its attitudes and regulations towards women with those of the Volunteers illustrate that Sheehy-Skeffington's rhetorical questioning about the exclusion of women simply does not apply to the Citizen Army as it does to the Volunteers. We may consider a significant factor in this the roots of the Citizen Army in the labour movement.
Although we can argue that it was (and remains) the case that military action was considered a "male" pursuit, and that the Volunteers' programme does indeed exclude women, those such as Constance Markievicz, Dr Kathleen Lynn, Helena Moloney and Maragaret Skinnider - all of whom took an active role in the Easter Rising - showed that women can indeed be involved in military action. Taking a longer historical view of Irish women's involvement in military aspects of struggle in Ireland, Gerardine Meaney contends that:
"Women are not... essentially more peaceable, less dogmatic, uninfected by blood-thirsty political ideologies. Women have been actively involved in every possible variant of both nationalism and Unionism... Women have supported and carried out violent actions. They have gained and lost from their involvement. If patriarchal history has portrayed us as bystanders to the political process, it has lied."60
There are perhaps broader issues to consider in the question of the role of military action, or "physical force" republicanism. Francis Sheehy-Skeffington's argument expresses his intense opposition to killing, but does not appear to discuss the question as to whether military action may be necessary for the achievement of the republicans' aspirations - beyond a hope that it might not be. A converse criticism may be levelled at a strand of Irish nationalism which may be considered to have organised around physical force as a principle, disregarding wide differences of political principle between members. James Connolly criticised this approach, writing in 1899 that:
"Socialists believe that the question of force is of very minor importance; the really important question is of the principles upon which is based the movement that may or may not need the use of force to realise its object."61
When Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Party in Westminster, immediately announced the support of Ireland for Britain62. Although many have claimed that the majority of Irish people did indeed support Redmond in his stance on the war, there was still opposition within the republican movement. Shortly after the outbreak of war, Maud Gonne wrote that:
"This war is an inconceivable madness which has taken hold of Europe. It is unlike any other war that has ever been... Could the women, who are after all the guardians of the race, end it?"63
With Redmond's declaration of support for Britain, the Irish National Volunteers split. The majority followed Redmond, while a minority of around 16,000 opposed the war. Led by Eoin MacNeill, and now known as the Irish Volunteers, they began to work more closely with the Irish Citizen Army64.
For some, for example Jim Larkin and James Connolly, the engagement of Britain in war with Germany was an opportunity to strike a blow for Irish independence. Connolly believed that the time was right for an armed uprising, in particular in view of the weakness of the labour movement across Europe on the question of the war.
"Grievously disappointed by the failure of the European labour movements to stop World War One or even to resist it, he turned his attention to organising an Irish nationalist revolt against British rule. He saw this work as part of an international movement against imperialism."65
By late 1915, the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was also planning an uprising. The IRB had been founded in 1858, led by James Stephens and John O'Mahony, and was also known by the name of its American branch, the Fenians66. The IRB was a highly secretive organisation which excluded women67.
In early 1916, the IRB's Military Council invited James Connolly to join its preparations for an uprising. This may have seemed an unlikely alliance, since the IRB was not a socialist organisation, and did not share Connolly's commitment to social issues of the living conditions of working class people or of the emancipation of women. However, Connolly remained convinced that an armed uprising was a vitally important strategy to pursue, and joined the IRB's Military Council in its preparations.
The Rising began on Easter Monday 1916. The insurgents published a Proclamation68, which was read out on the steps of the General Post Office, which had been seized as the headquarters of the rebellion. There are several interesting aspects to the wording of the Proclamation. It is addressed to "Irishmen and Irishwomen", and claims "the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman". Further, the Proclamation declares the intention to establish a national Government for the Republic of Ireland, "representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women". It promises "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens".
In addition to the General Post Office, the insurgents, including members of both the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, occupied Boland's Bakery (led by Eamon de Valera), the Four Courts (Edward Daly), Jacob's biscuit factory (Thomas MacDonagh), the South Dublin Union (Eamonn Ceannt) and St. Stephen's Green (Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz)69. Of the 120 Irish Citizen Army personnel at St. Stephen's Green, 15 were women70.
They met initially with some opposition from the civilian population of Dublin. In particular, a group of women whose husbands had enlisted with the British Army for the duration of the First World War, and who were paid "separation allowances" to compensate, were afraid that they would lose those allowances. Known as the "separation women", they were "vituperative in their hostility to the rebellion"70.
The British responded with fierce military force. Gunboats were stationed on the River Liffey, and bombarded the buildings which had been occupied. After the headquarters at the General Post Office had been set on fire, running desperately short of food and supplies, and knowing they would suffer further loss with no chance of victory, the rebels surrendered on 29 April.
The picture of the involvement of women in the Rising is as follows. In the Citizen Army, there were two women commissioned - Constance Markievicz and Dr Kathleen Lynn, medical officer. Nine women were involved in the attempted capture of Dublin Castle. Thirty-four women took part in the occupation of the General Post Office. A party of Cumann na mBan women were stationed in Jacob's. During the Rising, 77 women were arrested and five women interned.72
For women involved in the Rising, as well as the aspiration for national freedom, there was the added motivation of the struggle for women's liberation.
"For many women involved in the Easter uprising and subsequent civil struggles, visions of women's rights and women's place in the new Irish republic made their commitment to the cause all the stronger."73
In the aftermath of the Rising, 16 men - including James Connolly - were executed by the British. These executions began to turn the tide of opinion towards the rebels. Constance Markievicz was sentenced to death, but had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment "solely on the grounds of her sex".74
It has been claimed that after the Rising, with many of the leading men killed in action or executed. and others interned or perhaps demoralised, that it was women who continued the existence of the nationalist struggle: "For nearly a year after the rising it was the women who were the national movement... now again it was left to the women of Irish-Ireland to keep the movement going."75
Ireland at the beginning of this century was a country ruled - and exploited - by Britain. From the 1890s onwards, there began the growth of three important new trends - Gaelic revivalism, socialism and trade unionism, and the campaign for women's suffrage. For many, involvement in one issue led to consideration of others. Many women - and men - who were attracted to the idea that their country should be free from British rule soon began to ask themselves deeper questions about what they wanted their "independent" Ireland to be like, and responded with demands that it be free from sexism, from poverty and exploitation. Similarly, some women who first became involved in campaigns for the vote would begin to question the sort of society in which they wanted an equal share.
"My first realisation of tyranny came from some chance words spoken in favour of women's suffrage... That was my first bite, you may say, at the apple of freedom, and soon I got on to the other freedoms, freedom to the nation, freedom to the worker."76
For these women, an approach was needed that transcended "single issues", that offered a more complete picture of the better society to which they aspired. Indeed, without that "more complete picture", it was inevitable that tensions and disagreements would arise over priorities, as we have seen did occur over the relative weight which Irish women should give to questions of national independence and of women's suffrage.
For Constance Markievicz and others, the approach which resolved these issues was socialism. One reason for this is that the Irish labour movement had amongst its leaders men who far surpassed other male political figures in their support for women's rights. We should be wary of painting the Irish labour movement as a paragon of virtue on the question of women.
Indeed, it would surely be impossible for any movement functioning within a society in which women's unequal treatment is such a strong feature to be devoid of all traces of sexism.
However, much of the evidence suggests that some women were able to find a place in the labour movement in which they could fight assertively for their demands as part of the fight in the cause of labour. If a stronger commitment to building a working-class women's movement alongside -- and as part of - the labour movement, had been present yet greater involvement and representation may have been achieved.
Arrival at a socialist viewpoint would not be something that women would simply "think" their way to, however. They need to be caught up in a struggle. It was not a simple path that all Irish women followed. It is not the case that the majority of Irish women or Irish men followed this path. Perhaps we can only speculate as to how different Ireland's history may have been if more had.
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