In July 1903 Maud Gonne hung a black petticoat from the window of her Dublin home, insulting her unionist neighbours and provoking what became known as ‘the battle of Coulson Avenue’. Aided by nationalist friends, athletes from Cumann na nGaedheal and her sturdy housekeeper, she defended her ‘flag’ against police and irate neighbours. Gonne’s lingerie — allegedly a mark of respect for the recently deceased pope — flew in stark and defiant contrast to the numerous Union Jacks which lined her street in honour of King Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. This episode heralded a month of spectacular protest which polarised nationalist opinion. Like the visit to Dublin of Queen Victoria in 1900, King Edward’s tour provoked both enormous public interest and rivalry between various Irish institutions which vied to express their loyalty to the crown. But the royal tours also instigated fierce debate within the nationalist community and highlighted the ever deepening rifts between constitutional nationalism and ‘advanced’ nationalism.

The Control of Manufactures Acts of 1932 and 1934 were ostensibly designed to ensure that new industries established in the Irish Free State under extensive tariff protection would be Irish-controlled. This legislation has been seen as one of the major implements of Fianna Fail industrial policy — a measure which indicated the party’s commitment to an introspective, self-sufficient Ireland; its partial repeal in 1956 and complete removal the following year has been taken as marking the transition from a protectionist mentality to a more outward industrial orientation.

When the Anglo-Irish campaign ended in July 1921, the British government, in accordance with the agreed settlement, initiated the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.). For over a century the Irish police force, renamed the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1867, had carried the burden of policing in Ireland, and after 1916 it bore the brunt of escalating republican intimidation and violence. Now that the conflict was over and the R.I.C. faced dissolution, a number of questions remained outstanding. What would Whitehall do to assist former members of this force once British troops had withdrawn? What contingencies, if any, had been made by the British government for the speedy removal of these men who could not remain in Ireland ‘simply because they [had] performed their duty fearlessly as loyal servants of the Crown’? Was compensation forthcoming, and if so, what forms would it take? One suggestion which received close scrutiny was their resettlement in the overseas dominions — but how receptive were the dominion governments to this proposal?

Between 1879 and 1882 a mass agrarian movement, led by the Irish National Land League, became a strong, all-encompassing force in Irish life for a brief but crucial period. This movement, one of the largest agrarian movements to take place in nineteenth-century Europe, has been treated as a nationalist movement, with emphasis of study placed on the role, contributions and aims of the league’s national leaders. These men, seeking their own varieties of self-government, saw the land movement as means to a political end. To them the land agitation provided a stepping-stone to national independence. It was the Irish peasantry, however, motivated primarily by economic considerations, that provided the driving force behind the movement, and at this level Irish peasant women made major contributions to the agrarian revolt. In this study the Land League movement is viewed as an agrarian protest movement; its purpose is to examine in particular the roles played by the Irish peasant women during the Land League period.

These contributions have not been adequately recognised in historical literature. Recently the role of the Irish peasant has been duly acknowledged, but in these discussions a male image usually appears. When the Irish women’s role in the land movement is examined, it is done so in the context of the organisation known as the Ladies’ Land League. These studies concentrate on the activities of the upper- and middle-class urban leaders, particularly the Parnell sisters. But to dwell only on the Ladies’ Land League as the focus of women’s participation in the Land League movement is far too narrow, for it obscures the fact that hundreds of peasant women were fighting the Land War on a daily basis long before the formation of the women’s organisation. The papers of some of the local branches of the Land League provide evidence which shows that Irish rural women participated in the Land War from its beginning. Although the archival sources of the Land League period are biased towards men, enough material regarding the peasant women’s activities, admittedly limited and somewhat sparse, does exist to allow a strong argument to be put forward that peasant women performed effectively in the Land War.

In modern history there are few countries which present the historian with the kind of interpretative challenge offered by Ireland. The general outlines of the problem are well known—the impact on the island of successive waves of colonisation; the endemic unrest, religious strife, and political instability, exemplified in recent times by the partition of the island between two states; and the interaction and conflict since the middle ages of two cultures and two peoples, Gaelic and English. These salient features of Irish history raise the question of an appropriate historiographical framework within which the island’s history might be interpreted—if we accept that Ireland’s historical experience cannot be understood in isolation. In an article published in this journal three years ago, I outlined an alternative perspective on the history of late medieval Ireland which, it seemed to me, also held possibilities for other periods of Irish history. In the course of the discussion, the article also urged the modification or replacement of particular terms and concepts which have traditionally been used by historians but which, I argued, are an obstacle to a more balanced, pluralistic understanding of Ireland’s past. The article has since attracted a reply by Dr Brendan Bradshaw, on which the journal’s editors have kindly allowed me to comment.

In 1967 the late F S. L. Lyons published an essay entitled ‘The minority problem in the 26 counties’, defining the minority in the Irish Free State as ‘unionist in politics and mainly protestant in religion’. Since that date the topic has received considerable scholarly attention. Indeed the tendency has been to approach the cultural development of the new state in the years after independence from the point of view of that minority. While this paper does not seek to minimise the significance of the minority’s role in the evolution of the new state, it does seek to question the validity of the perspective produced by an excessive preoccupation with that role. That perspective is most clearly articulated in the published version of Lyons’s Ford lectures, Culture and anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939. The vision there presented is of an island rent by ‘four irrevocably warring cultures’ (Gaelic, English, Anglo-Irish and Ulster protestant). The cultural history of the Irish Free State in the first decade of independence, it is argued, is best understood as a battle between two of these apparently immutable cultures. In essence this view presents the nineteen-twenties as the decade during which Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Ireland confronted one another in the arenas of language and religion. The images are now fixed.

How might the history of Ireland's revolution be reassessed if viewed within a transnational, comparative or global framework? Drawing attention to recent writing on the subject, this introduction considers the conceptual and historiographical issues at stake in reframing the history of the Irish Revolution, as well as considering potential limitations to these approaches. We assess what topics in particular lend themselves to a fresh perspective focusing on Irish nationalism, while also indicating areas where there is considerable scope for new lines of inquiry. In this era of intensive commemoration of the events that unfolded between 1912 and 1923, this special issue serves to remind us that the history of the revolution should not be confined to the island of Ireland. We argue that thinking transnationally and comparatively can promote a more inclusive and diverse global history of Irish Revolution.

This study deals with one facet of British rule in Ireland: the careful, systematic and almost wholly bureaucratic takeover of key Irish scientific institutions by the Department of Science and Art in South Kensington. The department is now largely forgotten except by educational and institutional historians; and histories of Irish scientific organisations, whilst they may allude to skirmishes with the department, have rarely attempted to come to grips with the complexity of the relationships. We can, however, organise this complexity with a few, comparatively simple ideas.

Secret societies in Ireland in the period 1760 to 1845 have recently been the subject of an extraordinary amount (by Irish standards) of scholarly interest. The Whiteboys, Hearts of Oak, Steelboys, Rightboys, United Irishmen, Caravats, Rockites and Ribbonmen have all had their historians and various interpretations have been put forward to explain the rise of these societies and the nature of the violence they perpetrated. However, the Defenders, the secret society that dominated the 1790s and the immediate post-union period, have been relatively neglected. Admittedly some important contributions have been made recently to their history: Mr J.G.O. Kerrane has made a study of the Defenders in County Meath; Professor David Miller has investigated the origins of the society in County Armagh; Dr Marianne Elliott has explored the implications for future Irish republicanism of the 1796 alliance between the non-sectarian United Irishmen and the avowedly catholic Defenders; and Dr Tom Garvin has traced the lines of continuity between Defenderism and the later Ribbonism. Nonetheless, it remains true that there is as yet no comprehensive account of the movement and much about it remains obscure. The documents published below shed light on the organisation, aims and activities of the Defenders on the eve of their alliance with the United Irishmen. They also illustrate the complex web of archaic and modern forces that comprised ‘Defenderism’

The origin and the purpose of the Irish penal laws have always been subjects of contention. These laws have often been viewed as a ‘rag-bag’ of legislation, lacking in government policy, without precedent or forethought, motivated by rapacity, unfavoured in England and yet tolerated in return for concessions by an Irish parliament greedy for Catholic land and wealth. However, in the context of the first two Irish penal laws of 1695, and most specifically the disarming act, this generality does not hold good. It is the aim of this article to show that the two penal laws of 1695, for disarming Catholics and prohibiting foreign education, were the result of a definite policy which existed in Ireland from the time of the Williamite war. This policy was built upon a previous tradition of English statutes and Irish proclamations. The pressure for this policy came not only from Irish Protestants, but also from English ministers and from the crown. And the prime motive was security of the Protestant interest.

Victory at Limerick in October 1691 did not end the threat to the Williamite Protestant interest in Ireland. Fear of Catholic Europe remained constant as long as William III was at war with France, a fear that was heightened by the activities of privateers and rapparees. In the search for greater security, a policy developed for disarming Irish Catholics, which was actively supported by William III and his executive and legislature in England, was implemented by the executive in Ireland, and was encouraged and promoted by the Irish Protestant interest.

Historians of eighteenth-century Ireland agree in stating that catholics succeeded in amassing considerable wealth in trade, in spite of, or even because of, the popery laws, but little effort has been made to examine this question in detail.

What percentage of the principal merchants and traders of Ireland belonged to the catholic faith, or what percentage of the trade of Ireland was in their hands during the century? It is doubtful whether these questions will ever be answered completely. Contemporary travel books, and even contemporary local histories such as those of Charles Smith, scarcely mention trade, and contribute not at all to solving our particular problem. Local histories of more modern date concentrate on political rather than on economic history; and although it is to be hoped that local historians and genealogists will fill in some of the gaps, from family papers, from local newspapers and other available sources, the general historian investigating the problem has at present no regional or local studies to assist him in his researches. He must therefore try to piece together such scraps of information as are available and endeavour to arrive at some general conclusions.

So far as is known there was no precedent in the experience of England and Ireland for population increase as rapid or as sustained as that which appears to have begun in England in the 1750s and in Ireland some thirty years later If the available figures can be trusted the number of Englishmen (and Welshmen) more than doubled between 1750 and 1831 and the number of Irish living in Ireland doubled between 1780 and 1841. In England the rapid growth of population provides an essential part of the explanation of the coming of the industrial revolution. In Ireland it did even more than largely determine the magnitude of the catastrophe of the Famine. It was unbridled population growth, succeeded by famine, which incised on the minds of the Irish and their rulers unforgettable lessons which guided their conduct in the following century and ensured that Irish economic and social development, moulded by the exigencies of a declining population, should provide a unique model for the historian—and one which he has examined all too little.

It is tantalising that the elucidation of the dimensions and the structure of a problem of such overriding importance should be so elusive. The elusiveness, of course, must largely be attributed to the non-existence or the inadequacy of the appropriate statistics. It was not until half a century after the growth of population had begun that parliament at last insisted that the people be counted regularly.

Two recent books, one on protestantism, the other on plantation, have much in common. Both are by young authors who as undergraduates at Trinity College, Dublin, identified aspects of the history of early modern Ireland that were in urgent need of investigation and who then proceeded with the necessary research in British universities; in one case under the supervision of Dr Brendan Bradshaw and in the other under the tutelage of Dr Toby Barnard. The enthusiasm and combativeness of their undergraduate years still linger on in these pages but there is even clearer evidence of the skills, interests and approaches to historical study that have been cultivated by their graduate mentors. Furthermore, each book derives its authority from the systematic examination of a mass of source material that has previously been neglected, and each author advances his conclusions in a vigorous fashion and relates them to developments in Britain and on the Continent as well as to what was happening in Ireland. The fact that authors of such ability and accomplishment have been forced to make careers for themselves outside the university world is a sad reflection upon Irish national priorities and raises serious questions about recruitment and tenure practices in universities and other third-level institutions that have a concern for the study of Irish history.

The singularity of the apparent clash of church and state in 1951 and its easy resolution in 1953 should alert us to the dangers of accepting the perception of events as the reality This paper attempts to explain the complexity of factors that gave rise to the appearance of conflict. The evolution of health policy, the relationship of de Valera and Archbishop McQuaid, the intricate politicking of the first inter-party government, the role of the Knights of St Columbanus, the lobbying of the Private Practitioners’ Group of the Irish Medical Association and the medical profession’s influence with the catholic church and the Irish government — these are some of the factors entangled in the controversy The crisis of 1951, however, provides the touchstone by which one can judge the relevance of any record, and the reader should bear; in mind that the confusion of influences covered here relates ultimately to the illusion of conflict. We must go back to the seminal period, the Emergency — the period of the Second World War — to begin to unravel perception from reality

In July 1987, the private papers of Éamon de Valera relating to the drafting of the Irish constitution of 1937 were opened to the public for the first time. The purpose of this paper is to examine, in the light of this material, which is held in the Francisan House of Studies, Killiney, County Dublin, and of documents now available in the Irish Jesuit Archives, the contribution of a number of Jesuit priests to the drafting of this constitution.

On 24 May 1934, Éamon de Valera, president of the executive council, set up a committee of four civil servants to examine the Irish Free State constitution of 1922. Its membership consisted of Stephen Roche, secretary of the department of justice (committee chairman), Michael McDunphy, assistant secretary of the department of the president (committee secretary), Philip O’Donoghue, assistant to the attorney general, and John Hearne, legal adviser in the department of external affairs who, with de Valera, was to prove to be the principal architect of the 1937 constitution. It is clear from the minutes of this committee that its members were initially under the impression that what de Valera was seeking was a wholly new constitution. Thus, at its second meeting it was ‘agreed that the report of the committee should take the form of an entirely new constitution’. It soon became clear, however, ‘as a result of pronouncements by the president and of conversations which individual members of the committee had with him’, that what he really wanted was not a new constitution but ‘a selection within the framework of the present constitution of those articles which should be regarded as fundamental’ and ‘a recommendation as to how these should be rendered immune from alteration by ordinary legislation’.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, when Ireland and Britain are ‘offshore islands’ of an ostensibly ever-deepening European Union, it is, perhaps, relatively easy to overlook that imperial stage upon which both Irish partition in 1920 and the Anglo-Irish settlement of 1921 were enacted. Yet without this wider context, these momentous decisions are impossible to understand fully. Current questions about whether Ireland has essentially been a colony will inevitably continue to be debated, but the imperial circumstances of these events remain inescapable and essential to a full appreciation of the mindset of the leading participants in these affairs.

Historical comment upon the years between the death of Parnell and the outbreak of the First World War ranges widely. The historian’s vision focusses on conflict and change — nationalism, unionism, home rule, urban disruption, rural disorder, land reform and incessant social debate. This paper looks at one series of arguments partially obscured amidst the turmoil of those years. For rural-dwellers, state and private institutional intervention into the rural economy during this period radically affected power-relations and work-relations within their community. The attempts to reform the poultry industry provides one example of these changes.

Rearing poultry for sale rather than for household consumption was one of the most important occupations of the farm woman. Indeed, despite the impassioned debates and controversial decisions concerning the poultry industry from the 1890s, one thing was agreed: for better or (more commonly) for worse, the poultry industry was dominated by women.

By no means the least of the obstacles which hinder a quantitative analysis of Irish agriculture prior to 1847 is the chaotic state of weights and measures. Successive statutes had been introduced in an effort to secure uniformity, but had little effect even in official quarters. Thus, although 5 Geo. IV c. 74 set up, as from 5 January 1826, the ‘imperial standard’ as the only standard measure of distance, area, volume and capacity, the Irish Post Office continued to use the Irish mile in its cancellations at least up to 1856, and used the same unit in its published list of distances. Variations in the stone, hundredweight and ton, together with non-standard grain measures, were declared illegal in Ireland as from I July 1835, but practice again lagged far behind the law.

In the absence of any comprehensive survey of the actual state of weights and measures in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century, historians dealing with the period have tended to bypass the problem at the expense of ambiguity and inaccuracy.

The passing of the land act of 1903 had been in large part due to the success of the conference held in Ireland during the previous winter between representatives of Irish unionists and nationalists. The chairman of the conference, Lord Dunraven, had been one of the most prominent of the unionist advocates of a conciliatory policy and, after the initial work of the conference had been accomplished, he was reluctant to abandon the instrument for good which had been fashioned during the preceding six months. Supporting him at the conference had been a group of other unionist landlords with views similar to his own; they became known as the Land Committee, and they were to form the nucleus of a new organisation which Lord Dunraven had already in mind. This group was independent of party ties, for, if it contained no nationalist members, it was also frowned upon by the official unionist body, the Landowners' Convention.

This article explores the contraception campaigns of Irishwomen United (I.W.U.) and their offshoot, the Contraception Action Programme (CAP), in the Republic of Ireland from 1975 to 1981. It draws on ten oral history interviews with former members of I.W.U. and CAP conducted by the author, in addition to feminist magazines, newspaper sources and the Roisin Conroy/Attic Press archive. For Irish feminists, the issue of class was paramount to their contraception campaigns while, in common with their counterparts in the United States, they were also concerned about the increasing medicalisation of women's bodies and the potential health risks of the contraceptive pill, commonly prescribed as a ‘cycle regulator’ in Ireland. Fundamentally, I.W.U. and CAP members believed in a women's movement that allowed for the equal distribution of sexual knowledge and access to contraception. In this way, they foregrounded the connection between health and economic rights. Through their demonstrations, meetings and service provision, in unconventional spaces such as shops, markets, community centres and caravans, they challenged not only the law, but also the authority of both religious patriarchy and medical expertise in Ireland. Through an exploration of the activities of I.W.U./CAP, this article will contribute to understandings of campaigns around contraception and, with my commitment to profiling the experiences of ‘rank and file’ women, it will highlight class inequalities and concerns surrounding the medicalisation of women's bodies to a larger extent than has been done before. It also seeks to show the importance of informal women's networks in providing access to contraception and information about contraception pre-legalisation. Moreover, the article seeks to further elucidate the contribution of Irish grassroots organisations which have received limited historical attention.