ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the way women organise on shared gender interests on the island of Ireland. Networks created before partition between female activists from north and south of the border continued after 1922 and new networks were formed in light of changing political situations. As this chapter shows, women’s feminist activism often expands beyond state borders in general and similarly connects women from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in their fight for shared gender interests. The development of the women’s movement in both parts of the island and between them through different waves of feminism is characterised by continuity, but also by contention. Internal and external developments opened spaces for social mobilisations of women on the basis of shared gender interests across national, ethnic, class and other boundaries on the island of Ireland. However, those spaces were constrained by the divisive dynamic of the ethno-national agenda during the armed conflict and in the period of the Good Friday (GFA)/Belfast Agreement (1998). This chapter analyses the opportunities and challenges for forging connections between female activists north and south of the border through a focus on three key periods:
1 The formation of solidarity during the armed conflict in the 1970s; 2 The mobilisation of women across borders during the peace process in the
1990s, marked by the preparations for peace resulting in the Good Friday Peace Agreement (1998);
3 The mobilisation of women in the light of the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security in both parts of the Island (2000).
