Abstract
This thesis analyses the experiences of female republican political prisoners in Ireland during the period of the Second World War, or Emergency as it was known in Éire. It is the first comprehensive, comparative study of Irish female political imprisonment in this critical period. By addressing this significant lacuna, it restores these women to the historical narrative and offers new insights into the relationship between gender, anti-state activism and incarceration in modern Ireland. At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, emergency legislation was deployed against the militant republican movement on both sides of the Irish border. In Éire this was in the interests of the preservation of neutrality; in Northern Ireland, this occurred in defence of the British war effort. This dissertation adopts a comparative approach to examine how both states handled female subversives and to what extent gender shaped the use of state coercion. By utilising a wide range of archival sources, including newly released and previously underutilised sources, this thesis offers a detailed examination of the treatment of female political prisoners. It also explores the influence of a shared republican political culture and history on the treatment of those detained in Éire, considering how this shaped the state’s response. Cumann na mBan, and other unaffiliated republican women, maintained agency and ownership of specific areas of republican activism in this period. Their activities were bolstered by the support of existing networks of feminist activists, forged during Ireland’s revolutionary period. In this sense, the period of the Second World War is re-considered in this dissertation as a significant chapter in the afterlife of the Irish revolution. Furthermore, the thesis addresses women’s contemporary marginalisation within militant republicanism, and their subsequent neglect in both republican and scholarly narratives.Thesis embargoed until 31 December 2029.
| Date of Award | Dec 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Sponsors | Northern Ireland Department for the Economy |
| Supervisor | Fearghal McGarry (Supervisor) & Marie Coleman (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- Second World War
- Internment
- Political imprisonment
- Women
- gender
- Female Internees
- Internee
- Ireland
- Irish Republicanism
- Prisons
- Female prisoners
- female political prisoners
- social history
- gender history
- The Emergency
- IRA
- Cumann na mBan
- Northern Ireland
- Emergency Law
- Special Powers Act
- Armagh
- Mountjoy
- Dublin
- Belfast
- Censorship