Elaine Farrell

‘Poor prison flowers’: convict mothers and their children in Ireland, 1853–1900

Abstract Pregnant women and mothers were among the thousands of individuals who were sentenced to at least three years’ penal servitude and admitted to the nineteenth-century Irish female convict prison. While some babies were born behind bars, others were permitted to accompany their convicted mothers into the prison after the penal practice of transportation had ceased. Other dependent children were separated from their convicted mothers for years, cared for by family members or friends, or accommodated in Ireland’s growing web of institutions. Using individual case studies, this article focuses on convict mothers and their young offspring. It draws attention to the increasing restrictions on the admission of infants that were imposed as the nineteenth century progressed, the problems that children of various ages in the penal system seemed to pose for officials, and the difficulties faced by incarcerated mothers who wished to maintain communication with their offspring. This article argues that while there were benefits to parenting within the confines of the prison, sentences of penal servitude had a significant impact on the lives of dependent offspring by dislocating families, separating siblings, or initiating institutional or other care that broke familial bonds permanently. In so doing, the article reveals attitudes towards motherhood as well as female criminality and institutionalization generally during this period and sheds light on an aspect of convict life unique to the women’s prison.

War Within and Without: Irish women in the First World War era (special issue)

The period 1914–1918 was tumultuous in Ireland when conflict wrought by international tensions was exacerbated by a fractious domestic political scene that ultimately resulted in partition of the island into two jurisdictions: Northern Ireland, comprised of six of the nine Ulster counties, and the Free State, encompassing the remaining twenty-six counties. Both were dominions within the British Commonwealth with domestic parliaments controlling internal affairs. Neither were the desired political outcome of the various factions who had protested, taken up arms, and eventually negotiated. Women were pivotal on both sides of the political divide. For those who wished to stay in the union with Great Britain, the First World War was a chance to demonstrate loyalty and to showcase the particular contributions of women, from hosting Belgian refugees to the encouragement of enlistment of husbands, sons and friends. For those who wished to see the enactment of independence for Ireland, as promised in the 1912 Home Rule Bill and the suspended Act of 1914, the First World War provided an opportunity to enact long-held ambitions for a violent revolution, with women participating in active combat and non-combatant roles. Thus while the First World War was a pivotal moment for women globally, in Ireland it had an additional layer of complexity given the national political context. This article seeks to explore these intersections and tensions, providing an introduction to this special issue in which many facets of the war period in Ireland are explored.

‘The salvation of them’: emigration to North America from the nineteenth-century Irish women's convict prison

ABSTRACT The systematic transportation of criminals from Ireland to the colonies ceased in 1853 and was officially abolished by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857. Yet this did not end the international movement of Irish women from the convict prison. Using the gratuity earned through their industry, and with the assistance of the prison department, religious men and women, philanthropic societies, or family members and friends, women departed Ireland from the convict prison. Assistance took the form of passage tickets, money, clothing or provisions for the trip, accommodation before or after the journey, as well as contacts in the new world. This article, based on the overseas movement of discharged female prisoners in the wake of transportation, argues that emigration from prison was not an attempt to export Irelands serial offenders. While the Irish authorities might have wished to rid Ireland of women with criminal records, increasingly rigid immigration regulations prevented this practice from developing on a large scale.

A History of Infanticide in Britain c. 1600 to the Present

in which events and information were collated, interpreted and disseminated in print, murder became a problem greater than the sum of its parts’ (202). In conclusion, this is a very worthwhile study, not only for historians of crime but also for those who are interested in the early development of the relationship between public writing about crime, and the changing practices of the state and its agents. While the general area of crime in eighteenth-century London has been well trodden, Ward’s dissection of the processes of production and the broader impact of crime print culture is a very welcome contribution to the field. Heather Shore Leeds Beckett University H.Shore@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

‘“Indelible characters”:Tattoos, Power and the Late Nineteenth-Century Irish Convict Body

ABSTRACT Since the late nineteenth-century works of criminologists Lombroso and Lacassagne, tattoos in Europe have been commonly associated with deviant bodies. Like many other studies of tattoos of non-indigenous origin, the locus of our research is the convict body. Given the corporeal emphasis of prison records, we argue that tattoos form a crucial part of the power dynamic. Tattoos in the carceral context embody an inherent paradox of their being a component in the reidentification of ‘habitual criminals’. We argue that their presence can be regarded as an expression of convict agency: by the act of imprinting unique identifiers on their bodies, convicts boldly defied the official gaze, while equally their description in official records exacted power over the deviant body. Cursory findings show an alignment with other national studies; corporeal inscriptions in Ireland were more prevalent in mens prisons than womens and associated, however loosely, with certain occupations. For instance, maritime and military motifs find representation. Recidivists were more likely to have tattoos than first-time offenders; inscriptions were described as monotone, rudimentary in design and incorporated a limited range of impressions. Further to our argument that tattoos form an expression of convict defiance of prison authority, we have found an unusual idiosyncrasy in the convict record, that is, that the agency of photography, while undermined in general terms, was manipulated by prison officers.

Women, Infanticide and the Press, 1822-1922: news narratives in England and AustraliaNICOLA GOC

views on women musicians could have been a useful addition. These reservations aside, this is a significant book, which usefully applies gender studies to a previously neglected period of music history. Head not only reminds us of the feminised musical aesthetics which flourished during the later eighteenth century, but also provides a useful methodological approach for all of us who would take as our research focus music written by women. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in gender studies in musicology, particularly in the eighteenth century or within the German-speaking territories. It will also have a wider relevance to those interested in later eighteenth-century German musical culture.