Jennifer Redmond

“One man one job”: the marriage ban and the employment of women teachers in Irish primary schools

In 1932, the Irish government, facing an economic downturn, introduced a marriage ban which required that female primary school teachers were required to resign on marriage. This followed a series of restrictive legislative measures adopted by Irish governments throughout the 1920s which sought to limit women’s participation in public life and the public sector. Such a requirement emerged in several countries in response to high unemployment and applied principally to women’s white‐collar occupations, leading some commentators to argue that it stemmed from a social consensus rather than an economic rationale. Despite opposition to the ban from the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) on the basis that it was unconstitutional, would lead to fewer marriages and that married women were in fact more suited to teaching children, it remained in place until 1958. Although the ban is much referred to as part of the gender ideology that informed legislation in the early years of independent Ireland, the particular history of married women teachers has been little researched in the academic context. Over 50 years since the rescinding of the ban, this article examines its impact through an analysis of primary sources, including government cabinet minutes and the public commentary of the INTO and positions this history within the international context.

‘Sinful Singleness’? Exploring the Discourses on Irish Single Women’s Emigration to England, 1922–1948

In the interwar and immediate post‐war years, the persistently high rates of emigration by young, single Irish women gave rise to worries over their moral and spiritual welfare. This was partly because of their assumed extreme vulnerability as women coming from rural locations to the metropolises of England. It seems that the combination of their singleness and their gender was the prime reason for the concern evinced predominantly by the Roman Catholic Church, but also by lay organisations and the Irish governments. Multiple sources of danger for girls were perceived from their journey ‘across the water’ to their places of employment, from which they were in need of help and protection, if not prohibition. The majority of pronouncements on the topic were negative towards women, but no equivalent amount of concern was given to male migrants often of similar age and background and who also migrated as single persons. Thus, singleness was a gendered ‘problem’. Whilst studies of Irish female emigrants have focused on their experiences of being immigrants and their identity as white women who are in Bronwen Walter’s words ‘outsiders inside’, less attention has been paid to ways in which their single status became a marker of concern over morals and behaviour. Indeed, it is argued here that this was the particular reason why such moralistic discourses existed. This article seeks to explore some of the complexities of the public and private voices engaged in the debates over whether single female emigration could be equated with sinful behaviour and the gendered implications of migrants’ marital status.

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.

Immigrants, Aliens, Evacuees: Exploring the History of Irish Children in Britain during the Second World War

Abstract:This essay examines the Irish in Second-World-War Britain, particularly the histories of Irish children evacuated during the war. The central argument is that although they have failed to feature in many of the historical accounts of evacuation and do not have a place in the cultural imagination of the war, they were in fact deeply affected by the conflict. Irish mothers and their children participated in the official British evacuation scheme and also used private networks to escape the war. We know little of these evacuation stories, despite their coverage in contemporary newspapers. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, this essay sketches out the available knowledge on their experiences and argues for the expansion of historical studies of the war to include Irish children. It also reflects on the nature of Irish neutrality, examining the administrative and financial role Britain played in the evacuation of Irish citizens.

Irish nationalist women, 1900–1918

committees did not want to overstate the problem as they enforced the act and the press removed any sympathy that people may have had for them by portraying them as “aggressive” tramps. The success of this campaign saw them being viewed as parasites, and containing the problem became very important by the early twentieth century. The administration of the workhouse and, later, county homes reflected popular notions of entitlement and eligibility in that anyone capable of working should. However, we are still limited in our understanding of its operation because the failures are recorded more than the successes. The lack of contextualisation for individual cases of poverty limits our ability to understand it. Contemporaries frequently failed to understand the reality of involuntary poverty because of the rigid paradigm which the Poor Law was framed in, and “claiming a state of nationhood for the national obscured the needs of the most vulnerable” (229). This is an important and timely book. Professor Crossman’s analysis is empathetic, robust and engaging. It sheds important light on the nature of the Poor Law from a variety of perspectives and this is to be welcomed. While we remain limited in our understanding of the experiences of the very poor, Crossman has shared some of their experiences in an empathetic and informative manner, which is to be welcomed.