Compensation claims and women's experience of violence and loss in revolutionary Ireland, 1921-23

This chapter will look at compensation claimed and awarded to women as a result of personal injury or damage to property after the revolution. It will draw on the Irish Grants Committee's files for compensation given to Irish loyalists to examine the impact of political violence on loyalist women. Themes examined will include the nature of violence experienced by these women (including physical attacks, intimidation and the economic effects of commercial boycotts), the impact which this had on their health and whether or not they remained in Ireland after Independence. It will also use the recently released Military Service Pensions Collection to examine the impact of involvement in revolutionary activity on combatant women, mostly Cumann na mBan. Pensions awarded for injuries and illness provide an insight into the physical and psychological effects that revolutionary activity had on them. The economic impact on families whose husbands, sons or brothers died as a result of the conflict will also be examined through pensions and gratuities that were awarded to dependants, which are also in this collection.