ABSTRACT
Revolutionary movements in Ireland from the mid-nineteenth century were conspiratorial and exclusively male. Women were denied agency in this ‘separate spheres’ conception of national liberation. However, through participation in the land wars of the 1880s, through to the formation of the feminist-nationalist group Inghinidhe na hEireann and involvement in the Easter Rising and the War of Independence as Cumann na mBan and Irish Citizen Army members, Irish women rejected masculine-imposed limitations upon their activities, fighting for social and gender justice as well as for national freedom. While feminist scholars have been engaged in recovery work for several decades, the opening of official archives and the digitisation of newspapers has enabled researchers to discover new evidence regarding the multiplicity of women’s roles. Witness statements in the Bureau of Military History and the evidence from the pension applications of women who fought in the 1916–1923 period are amongst the key online sources used to develop a more nuanced account of the gendered nature of the Irish revolution as this chapter will show.
