'Decentring the Irish Land War: Women, Politics and the Private Sphere'

Typeset version

 

TY  - GEN
  - Heather Laird
  - 2013 November
  - Land Questions in Modern Ireland
  - 'Decentring the Irish Land War: Women, Politics and the Private Sphere'
  - Manchester University Press
  - Manchester
  - Published
  - 1
  - Irish Land War Ladies’ Land League Rent Strike Anti-Eviction Agitation Land League Huts Boycotting Feminist Historiography Subaltern
  - In historical accounts of Ireland in which the political is defined purely in terms of that which directly affects the state, and historical change is believed to be powered by these narrowly defined political forces, women, who were for the most part excluded from formal male political culture, tend to be assigned a marginal role. State-centred histories, in other words, are invariably patriarchal histories. One of the means employed to counteract this marginalization is to seek out examples of ‘exceptional’ women who did operate in the arena of the state, or close to it, and focus attention on them. While scholarship of this kind reminds us of the impressive contribution that women like Constance Markievicz made to Irish society, it fails to challenge the values and structures of the historiography it is supplementing. In this chapter, I demonstrate, with reference to women and agrarian unrest in the 1880s land agitation, that an historical framework which decentres familiar notions of power and the political is the most effective way to bring women in from the margins of Irish history. Relocating the ‘front’ of the Land War from the public sphere of organized politics to the civil domain of everyday life reveals the centrality of women to this episode in Irish history.
  - Fergus Campbell and Tony Varley
  - 9780719078804
  - 175
  - 193
  - 10.7228/manchester/9780719078804.001.0001
DA  - 2013 November/NaN
ER  - 
@misc{V185926014,
   = {Heather Laird },
   = {2013 November},
   = {Land Questions in Modern Ireland},
   = {'Decentring the Irish Land War: Women, Politics and the Private Sphere'},
   = {{Manchester University Press}},
   = {Manchester},
   = {Published},
   = {1},
   = {Irish Land War Ladies’ Land League Rent Strike Anti-Eviction Agitation Land League Huts Boycotting Feminist Historiography Subaltern},
   = {{In historical accounts of Ireland in which the political is defined purely in terms of that which directly affects the state, and historical change is believed to be powered by these narrowly defined political forces, women, who were for the most part excluded from formal male political culture, tend to be assigned a marginal role. State-centred histories, in other words, are invariably patriarchal histories. One of the means employed to counteract this marginalization is to seek out examples of ‘exceptional’ women who did operate in the arena of the state, or close to it, and focus attention on them. While scholarship of this kind reminds us of the impressive contribution that women like Constance Markievicz made to Irish society, it fails to challenge the values and structures of the historiography it is supplementing. In this chapter, I demonstrate, with reference to women and agrarian unrest in the 1880s land agitation, that an historical framework which decentres familiar notions of power and the political is the most effective way to bring women in from the margins of Irish history. Relocating the ‘front’ of the Land War from the public sphere of organized politics to the civil domain of everyday life reveals the centrality of women to this episode in Irish history.}},
   = {Fergus Campbell and Tony Varley},
   = {9780719078804},
  pages = {175--193},
   = {10.7228/manchester/9780719078804.001.0001},
  source = {IRIS}
}
AUTHORSHeather Laird
YEAR2013 November
JOURNALLand Questions in Modern Ireland
TITLE'Decentring the Irish Land War: Women, Politics and the Private Sphere'
PUBLISHERManchester University Press
PUBLISHER_LOCATIONManchester
STATUSPublished
PEER_REVIEW1
SEARCH_KEYWORDIrish Land War Ladies’ Land League Rent Strike Anti-Eviction Agitation Land League Huts Boycotting Feminist Historiography Subaltern
ABSTRACTIn historical accounts of Ireland in which the political is defined purely in terms of that which directly affects the state, and historical change is believed to be powered by these narrowly defined political forces, women, who were for the most part excluded from formal male political culture, tend to be assigned a marginal role. State-centred histories, in other words, are invariably patriarchal histories. One of the means employed to counteract this marginalization is to seek out examples of ‘exceptional’ women who did operate in the arena of the state, or close to it, and focus attention on them. While scholarship of this kind reminds us of the impressive contribution that women like Constance Markievicz made to Irish society, it fails to challenge the values and structures of the historiography it is supplementing. In this chapter, I demonstrate, with reference to women and agrarian unrest in the 1880s land agitation, that an historical framework which decentres familiar notions of power and the political is the most effective way to bring women in from the margins of Irish history. Relocating the ‘front’ of the Land War from the public sphere of organized politics to the civil domain of everyday life reveals the centrality of women to this episode in Irish history.
EDITORSFergus Campbell and Tony Varley
ISBN_ISSN9780719078804
URL
START_PAGE175
END_PAGE193
DOI_LINK10.7228/manchester/9780719078804.001.0001
FUNDING_BODY
GRANT_DETAILS