‘We will go out and raise the wind’: female criminality and society in Ulster, 1890s-1920s

Abstract

This thesis explores the lives of ‘ordinary’ women and girls in Ulster in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the records of the criminal justice system. It looks at how women and girls experienced poverty, platonic, romantic and community relationships, addiction, violence, social interactions and family economies but also how they embraced, created and responded to criminal opportunity. For many women criminality was about continuity, maintaining a standard of living and looking after family and community in a very turbulent time. For others, particularly girls and young women, it could be about grasping opportunities and keeping up with consumer culture. This thesis looks at female criminality through six distinct spaces important to Ulster’s women and girls: the rural environment, the home, the workplace, the neighbourhood, the streets and the courtroom, though it is also concerned with the overlap and intersections of these locations. The focus on space reveals the impact of crime throughout a woman or girl’s life and the importance of everyday items, social relationships and situations on the more extraordinary moments recorded in the court records.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 July 2030.

Date of Award	Jul 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	AHRC Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership
Supervisor	Niamh Cullen (Supervisor), Elaine Farrell (Supervisor), Leanne McCormick (Supervisor) & Graham Jackson (Supervisor)