ABSTRACT
Historians have found it difficult to disentangle the cultural and political strands of the revival. This difficulty has been caused partly by the widely differing backgrounds-religious, social and political-of participants in Gaelic and Anglo-Irish cultural activity, but it derives also from ambiguities in the organizations founded to encourage the development of various aspects of a nation’s cultural identity. These ambiguities proved to be especially confusing when it came to posterity’s assessment of the role of Inghinidhe na hEireann. The Daughters’ position in Irish history has been pushed to the edge of the stage or even left out altogether. Because the organization was swallowed up by Cumann na mBan, the part, or parts, that it played can easily be forgotten. It really existed on three levels: at its base was a rather sad association of well-meaning women, unexpectedly ‘tweedie’ in appearance, endeavouring to instil the rudiments of Irish awareness into an unprepossessing collection of pupils; then, by contrast, there were the controversial figures who, from time to time, attracted the limelight; finally, there was the organization’s mouthpiece, its journal, Bean na hEireann (Woman of Ireland). As the years went by and the most prominent figures either became absorbed by their own domestic problems or devoted their lives to serving a multiplicity of nationalist committees and associations, membership dwindled and the time came when the organization really only existed on the pages of its journal.
