Alan Hayes, Diane Urquhart, eds. The Irish Women's History Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. ix + 233 pp. $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-19914-8.
Reviewed by Sally Warwick-Haller (School of Social Science, Kingston University, England)
Published on H-Albion (March, 2002)
This is a very worthwhile and much-needed collection of thirty-one articles on women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland reproduced from chapters and articles already published. Some of these have appeared in obscure journals and books with small print-runs. Thus a major strength of this book is that it brings together some important research and makes this easily available to students of women^Òs history. Chapters by some of the leading academics in Irish women^Òs history are included in this work, which also offers clear evidence of the flourishing extent of research in recent decades on Irish women.
It provides a particularly useful research aid for undergraduates, and suggests topics, ideas and reading for research essays/projects, as well as offers a general introduction to Irish women^Òs history. It highlights problems women in Western society faced, while also emphasizing some of the more unique circumstances in Ireland which impinged on the position of women. The articles are written in a form that makes them very accessible to students unfamiliar with women^Òs history and/or Irish history. The conciseness of each article (on average five to six pages) means that the book can cover a wide range of aspects, and by confining the content to the two last centuries, the reader is offered a coherent work. There are good introductory statements to each section, with useful suggestions for further reading. Given the limitations of space for each article, most represent a clear and cogently argued contribution. The book is organized into six well-defined areas, and it is also pleasing to note that a few of the contributors (including one of the editors) are male.
The opening section on Historiography contains a useful discussion of women^Òs contributions as historians, the role of feminism, the usefulness of gender as a defining concept, and the development of women^Òs history in Ireland. The second section on Politics contains more articles than the other sections, and leans towards the twentieth century. It is a pity that room could not have been made for two potential nineteenth^Öcentury inclusions: Brigitte Anton^Òs article on women in the Young Ireland movement ('Women of The Nation', History Ireland, Autumn 1993) and Janet Te Brake^Òs on peasant women in the Land League ('Irish peasant women in revolt: The Land League years', Irish Historical Studies, May 1992).
Particularly clear and interesting is the survey of the diversity and importance of women^Òs contributions to political life and the strains imposed by the nationalist/unionist question; this opens up a lot of avenues for research. Also useful is the inclusion of women in Ulster Unionism, the analysis of Cumann na mBan and the discussion of the position of women under the 1937 Constitution. The third section on Health and Sexuality covers a range of topics. They all complement one another well. The myths about nineteenth-century Ireland as some idealised sexual age with no sexual relations outside marriage are attacked in a well-focused analysis; there is a good introduction to prostitution in Ireland and the work of the Magdalen asylums; the chapter on the way madness was perceived raises some important questions. The article on the role of a birth control clinic in Northern Ireland in the 1930s and the 40s is interesting, and might have been usefully broadened to include a comparison with the attempts to introduce birth control into Southern Ireland (e.g. in the 1960s and 70s). Particularly well-written and persuasively argued is the chapter which aims to prove that women were not discriminated against in the Famine years; some useful illustrative tables are included and are also clearly analysed.
For a reader on Irish women^Òs history a section devoted to Religion is essential, and it is gratifying to see this included as the fourth section, with some useful articles stressing the influence of and the role of religion as a means of enlarging women^Òs sphere of influence in Ireland. The contribution on nuns and class divisions is excellent, coherent and well-researched, with a good balance between argument and detailed evidence. The inclusion of an analysis of women and evangelical religion is also a successful attempt to counter the emphasis on the political aspects of Ulster^Òs religious history. However, the importance of the Catholic church in defining the ideal of womanhood must be acknowledged, and this is explored in the last chapter of this section to highlight the restrictions women faced in post-1922 Ireland. The fifth section stresses another essential aspect of Irish women^Òs history: emigration. It is useful to think about different categories and time-periods, one of the central themes of the opening article. Here the problems for researchers are clearly articulated, and also the need for more research is signalled, while the author acknowledges that a key question remains unanswered: was emigration a step towards emancipation? As one might expect, there are chapters on emigration to Australia, to the United States and to Britain. The first of these reports on schemes to help orphan girls escape the Famine, and the discussion raises some useful questions, but does need more evidence on what the girls did once they arrived. The chapter on emigration to Britain is focused on the post-1922 period, and places some emphasis on Ireland^Òs cultural developments in these years, exploring how the concept of Irishness was bound up with a woman^Òs ties with her family and her role in the home. It might be appropriate to mention at this point that had space allowed, it would have been interesting to have had a separate section in the book (in addition to the six categories) devoted to the subject of women and cultural nationalism.
The sixth and final section (perhaps the strongest section in this book) is on Work and covers a wide range of subjects. The opening chapter is an overall survey of patterns of female employment from the eighteenth century onwards, with a clear analysis of the impact of industrialisation and changes in agricultural employment. This contribution has managed to incorporate a lot into a few pages without losing the clarity of the argument. The chapters on women in rural Ireland (from the small farmer and landless labourer classes) and in domestic service in Dublin do lean a little towards description, but, nonetheless, give insight into the grim lives these women led. A particularly useful article is the one on women and trade unions, which, though a survey of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, does offer a good, coherent analysis. The argument moves easily from section to section and is a good example of effective editing. Also acknowledged as 'work' is involvement in philanthropic activities (with the emphasis on the impact of the religious divide) and housework. This latter offering is an amusing, cogently argued, well-structured article which explores the link between housework and power. A chapter on women and the professions could have been a useful addition, but some topics had to be omitted. Women and education is another area that could have received more acknowledgement in this book, though a good, concise discussion of women and higher education was incorporated into the Politics section.
The overall quality of the offerings in this book is high, and they reflect good scholarship and reporting of research. There are a couple of articles, however, where no references/end-notes have been included: the chapters on Irish suffrage and on the emigration of Famine orphans. The problems of editing and slimming down from the orginal texts must be acknowledged, and generally, this has been very well done. However, there are some instances where the argument could flow more smoothly. The articles on Catholic sisterhoods in twentieth-century Ireland and on women^Òs contributions to the Oireachtas debate in the Irish Free State are two main examples, but both contain interesting information and ideas. All in all, this book offers a thought provoking, readable and informative insight into a wide range of subjects. Questions are raised, issues are signalled. Above all, this collection plugs a big gap in Irish women^Òs history and will be an essential text for students of women^Òs history.
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Citation:
Sally Warwick-Haller. Review of Hayes, Alan; Urquhart, Diane, eds., The Irish Women's History Reader.
H-Albion, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2002.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=6011
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