Table Of ContentWOMEN AND
THE DECADE OF
COMMEMORATIONS
Irish Culture, Memory, Place
Oona Frawley, Ray Cashman, Guy Beiner, editors
WOMEN AND
THE DECADE OF
COMMEMORATIONS
k
OONA FRAWLEY, EDITOR
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.org
© 2021 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-05371-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-253-05372-5 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-05373-2 (ebook)
First printing 2021
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Naming Names; Countering Oblivious
Remembering in the Decade of Commemorations /
Oona Frawley 1
1. Remembered for Being Forgotten: The Women of 1916,
Memory, and Commemoration / Mary McAuliffe 22
2. Unity of Unionism? Gender, Covenant, and Commemoration /
Diane Urquhart 41
3. 1916 and After: Remembering “Ordinary” Women’s Experiences of
Revolutionary Ireland / Laura McAtackney 57
4. Women of the Rising in Australia: Memory and
Commemoration, 1916–2016 / Dianne Hall 74
5. “Sick on the Irish Sea, Dancing across the Atlantic”:
(Anti)-nostalgia in Women’s Diasporic Remembrance of
the Irish Revolution / Síobhra Aiken 88
6. “No Conscription Now! Or after the Harvest”: Remembering
Women and Anti-conscription in Ireland and England / Sonja
Tiernan 107
7. Emerging from the “Historical Shadow”: Memory and
Commemoration of Irish Women’s Experiences in
World War I / Fionnuala Walsh 124
8. Commemorating a Missing History: Tracing the Visual and
Material Culture of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Campaign,
1908–1918 / Donna Gilligan 142
9. Irish Suffrage: Remembrance, Commemoration, and
Memorialization / Margaret Ward 171
10. Tea, Sandbags, and Cathal Brugha: Kathy Barry’s Civil Wars /
Eve Morrison 189
vi Contents
11. Curators of Memory: Women and the Centenary of
the Easter Rising / Roisín Higgins 205
12. Exhibiting Éire: Representations of Women in the Easter Rising
Centenary Commemorations / Maeve Casserly 220
13. Waking the Feminists: Gender “Counts” /
Brenda O’Connell 242
14. “No Country for Young Women”: (Re)producing the Irish State /
Sinéad Kennedy 267
15. Remembering the Home and the Northern Irish Troubles /
Eli Davies 284
16. Honest Commemoration: Reconciling Women’s
“Troubled” and “Troubling” History in Centennial Ireland /
Linda Connolly 300
References 315
Index 355
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This volume was inspired by a series of keynote lectures, symposia, and
roundtable discussions held at Maynooth University in 2016 as the university’s
centennial commemorations program. These public events aimed to diver-
sify approaches to the decade of commemoration, focusing intentionally on
“women and the decade of commemorations” as a corrective to the national
conversation at that point, seeking to showcase the scholarly and creative en-
deavors of women working in an Irish cultural context and to initiate discus-
sion about their counterparts of a century ago. Finally, they aimed to consider
the ways in which the decade of centenaries had the potential to limit discussion
and debate about events and commemorations perceived to lie outside of its
remit, from the ways in which women in the North of Ireland contributed to the
revolutionary period to the rights afforded to women in contemporary Ireland.
Scholars, writers, art practitioners, activists, and community workers at-
tended and participated in a series of events throughout the year, generously
funded by Maynooth University’s Commemorations Committee and the Re-
search Office at Maynooth University. The Department of Foreign Affairs’
Peace and Reconciliation Fund’s support meant that we were able to offer
funding to postgraduates, independent researchers, and artists from across
the island of Ireland, allowing for crucial exchanges between early career re-
searchers, artists, community workers, activists, and established voices from an
all-Ireland perspective. I am also most grateful to the Irish Research Council
for generous funding under its New Foundations scheme, which allowed for the
expansion of the original program and afforded the university the opportunity
to host preeminent scholars from around the world. Thank you to Guy Beiner,
Dominic Bryan, Maeve Casserly, Marie Coleman, Stef Craps, Graham Dawson,
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Martina Devlin, Jonathan Evershed, Roisín Higgins, Marianne Hirsch, Si-
néad Kennedy, Stefanie Lehner, Sophie Long, Emily Mark-Fitzgerald, Laura
McAtackney, Mary McAuliffe, Sinéad McCoole, Lucy McDiarmid, Eve Mor-
rison, Conor Mulvagh, Maureen O’Connor, Emilie Pine, Ian Speller, Sonja
Tiernan, Diane Urquhart, and Margaret Ward for fascinating, always thought-
ful, and often provocative contributions. Heartfelt thanks to all of those who
traveled to attend and participate in those seminars; your involvement is what
made the series such a success.
Many Maynooth University colleagues were enormously supportive, too
many to name. Thank you to all of my colleagues in the Department of English
and particular thanks to Amanda Bent, Elaine Bean, Linda Connolly, Madhu
Kambamettu, Tracy O’Flaherty, and Jennifer Redmond for their advice, as-
sistance, and support in planning and coordinating the series. Several of the
events were cohosted with the Irish Memory Studies Network; many thanks
to Emilie Pine for her support and collegiality.
My sincere thanks to this volume’s contributors, who, one and all, have been
patient, enthusiastic, and wonderful to engage with during this project. Thank
you to Jennika Baines at Indiana University Press, whom I am grateful to have
the opportunity to work with once again, and to my series co-editors, Guy
Beiner and Ray Cashman. Finally, my thanks to Donal, Caelin, and Oscar for
their ongoing support and love, without which no volume could be completed.
This volume is dedicated to the memory of my one-of-a-kind, loving mother,
Maureen Frawley, feminist and role model.
WOMEN AND
THE DECADE OF
COMMEMORATIONS
