ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the means by which the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council (UWUC) became the largest female political association in Ireland’s history. From its establishment in 1911, its declared aim was to represent both ‘The peeress and the peasant’ in the fight against Irish Home Rule. The extent to which this aspiration was achieved is examined here by analysing both membership figures and signatories to the Women’s Declaration of 1912. The latter document was the female equivalent of the more widely known and popularly acclaimed male Solemn League and Covenant, which is regarded as a foundational text for modern unionism. By comparison, although 16,000 more women signed the female declaration than male signatories to the covenant in Ulster, the former has been marginalised. The role of elite leadership and gendered political rhetoric are also explored to ascertain the effectiveness of the methods of mass mobilisation deployed by the UWUC. As such, the chapter offers an assessment of women’s political popularisation in the period up to the partition of Ireland and in both the pre- and post-enfranchisement eras.
