Linda Connolly

The limits of ‘Irish Studies’: historicism, culturalism, paternalism

What is ‘Irish Studies’ now? Is it, in fact, just a shorthand term for the interdisciplinary/ intercultural study of ‘the Irish’ and ‘Irishness’, or is it a paradigm that has become exclusively coupled with a grand postcolonial reading of Irish culture? Who are ‘the Irish’ of the all-inclusive idiom ‘Irish Studies’ that emerged from a rather limited arena of dispute about ‘the past’ between some historians and cultural critics in the 1980s? Has Irish criticism truly given modern Irish history ‘a run for its money’? And is a limited interpretation of ‘culture’ advancing a narrow and exclusive definition of Irishness in this arena? This essay provides a critical appraisal of the direction Irish Studies has taken in the last two decades [1]. Undoubtedly, the term ‘Irish Studies’ has become almost exclusively associated with an identifiable group of literary critics associated with the Field Day agenda and postcolonial criticism [2]. However, this essay seeks to advance a much broader understanding and definition of the field. The emergence of postcolonialism as a dominant discourse in Irish Studies is contextualised in the first section. Claire Connolly suggests that, despite its initial turn to theory, Irish cultural criticism has now settled into a type of ‘critical orthodoxy’ [3]. Furthermore, the centre ground of postcolonial criticism has acquired an accepted definition and general understanding, which has marginalised several other important fields of inquiry and paradigms in Irish Studies, outside of its dominant framework. The formation of postcolonialism, as a critical orthodoxy, is usually analysed separately from other perspectives in Irish Studies—such as Irish historical studies and women’s studies. However, this analysis seeks to break new ground by examining the interrelationship and impact of these particular fields on each other. History was the foremost humanities discipline in Irish academia for much of the twentieth century [4]. By the 1980s, the landscape of Irish thought was transformation. The intervention of outspoken literary critics in the dispute between nationalist and revisionist historians forcefully combined with a turn to postcolonial theory in Irish critical writing [5]. ‘Postcolonial’ theorists have focused much of their energies in Irish Studies on contesting the long-standing hegemony of history and historians in the last twenty years [6]. Consequently, the extent to which postcolonial criticism, and Irish Studies more generally, remains determined by Irish historical studies is explored in the second section. Crucially, this essay is also concerned with the fact that although postcolonial criticism consolidated a major intellectual genre from the 1980s onwards, Irish intellectuals have underestimated the parallel emergence of at least one other significant field of study in the same period—Irish women’s studies. The relationship that has devel-

Feminist Politics and the Peace Process

The Belfast Agreement is currently being addressed in light of a number of issues: freedom of assembly and the right to protest; international models of peace and reconciliation; reinventing government; devolution; and the decommissioning impasse. However, the implications of the Agreement for feminist politics and womens organisations in civil society are not clear. Historically, feminism is a tangible and observable set of ideologies and form of politics in Northern Ireland. Contemporary womens groups occupy an extensive political space in civil society. Activists in grassroots organisations, where women are concentrated, are as central as elected representatives in the drive towards a negotiated settlement. ‘Doctrinal’ interpretations of the Peace Process simplify feminist politics and occlude diversity and conflict both within and between different groups of women. This paper explores how a conflict approach to feminist politics can pose alternative questions about the Peace Process.

Naming the parts: a case-study of a gender equality initiative with academic women

Purpose – This paper aims to seek to contribute to current debates about the effectiveness of different types of gender equality interventions in the academic context. This paper presents an argument for the need to move beyond an individual-structural dichotomy in how such interventions are perceived. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on an action-research case-study, the Through the Glass Ceiling project, to challenge the idea that “individual”/single-actor interventions serve only to reinforce underlying inequalities by attempting to “fix the women”. Findings – It is suggested that actions that support women in their careers have the potential to achieve a degree of transformation at individual, cultural and structural levels when such actions are designed with an understanding of how individuals embody the gendered and gendering social structures and values that are constantly being produced and reproduced within society and academia. The case study highlights the benefits of supporting in...

Theorizing `Ireland'? Social Theory and the Politics of Identity

... Ireland and the Irish microcosm came under increased scrutiny, a scrutiny perhaps disproportionate to the real importance of the country itself. This attention, due to Ireland’s accidental presence at the heart of the Empire, aggravated Irish selfconsciousness and self-importance. After all, all these important people were paying attention to us. A result was that few countries spend so much time and intellectual effort on self-definition as does Ireland. Endless and occasionally entertaining debates on what it means to be Irish go on in Ireland and among some sections of the diaspora in Britain and the United States. A minor publishing industry exists built around the subject.

Movement in Abeyance: The Historical Connection

The new women’s movement that arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s in most Western countries was not the first feminist movement in history. The term ‘second-wave feminism’ has been attached to the new movement to indicate that we are witnessing the second peak of a movement that has existed for more than 100 years, ever since the second half of the nineteenth century. (Dahlerup, 1986: 2)

The Irish Women’s Liberation Movement: Radicalism, Direct Action, Confrontation

The appearance of new radicalism in various political forms in Ireland, in the late 1960s, marked a departure from a long period of abeyance into a second wave of feminism. An individual movement’s ‘success’ is typically measured on the basis of substantive reforms. Promoting institutional change is generally considered the business of organisations concerned with equal rights. However, as Staggenborg states: movements can also succeed in bringing about changes in ‘collective consciousness’. In the case of the women’s liberation movement, changes occurred in the way in which women thought about their sexuality, their health and their reproductive rights. To achieve this change in women’s consciousness, the movement bypassed established organisational channels to reach women directly through new kinds of educational forums. (Staggenborg, 1991: 43)

Conclusions: Whither the Women’s Movement?

Revealing the project of feminist social change can expand our understanding of the way in which contemporary Ireland has developed and changed, over time. The empirical task of theorising movement processes at the meso level of social analysis addresses substantial inaccuracies informing existing interpretations of Irish feminist activism and provides a basis for acknowledging further the role of a multifaceted and decentred women’s movement in subverting the modernisation process of Irish society. In general, the significant transformation that has occurred in Irish women’s lives has generated change across society as a whole. In this light, this conclusion asks what challenges does this analysis pose to contemporary understandings of feminism and the relationship between social movements, modernity and change? What kind of effect has the women’s movement had, in the Irish context?

Irishwomen United: Political and Ideological Conflict

Ita Hynes reported in the Irish Independent in 1975: Irishwomen United, founded last April, is the umbrella under which Women’s Lib groups from the Universities, the Sandymount Self-Help Group, and the Revolutionary Marxist group work together in order, as they say, ‘to change society’. (Quoted from the Irish Independent 1975 in Fennell and Arnold, 1987: 11)

Facing up to Difference: Formalisation and New Directions in the 1990s

Has three decades of second-wave feminism produced a broader cultural shift in the general expectations and status of Irish women? The National Women’s Council’s (the re-named CSW) twenty-fifth anniversary conference was held in 1998. Mary Maher’s corresponding article of 21 October 1998 in the Irish Times, entitled ‘Don’t Blame Men’, posed a number of interesting and provocative questions about contemporary Irish feminism. In addition, the issues raised in the article, and at the conference, relate to a whole series of articles published in recent years, on the issue of women’s rights in Irish society. Maher (a founder member of IWLM) suggested that: old style feminism has ‘had its day’ and promotes the organisation of an equality movement, which would include men and regard gender as one of several discriminations to eliminate. This chapter takes up these challenges and asks the more pedantic question of who or what is the women’s movement today? Is the advocacy and maintenance of a conventional and distinct women’s movement still necessary to eliminate gender as a key type of discrimination, in contemporary societies? Has equality not been achieved in so many areas?

Irish Women: Late Developers?

David Lloyd (1999) asks whether there are other methods and theoretical approaches that might open up the field of Irish studies to alternative perspectives and narratives. Occlusion of the women’s movement, and indeed other social movements, calls into question the theoretical foundation that frames much conventional analysis of contemporary Ireland — in particular, the historical determinism of Enlightenment or developmental varieties of ‘modern Irish history’ and modernisation theory. A meticulous survey of mainstream historical, literary and sociological literature confirms that the women’s movement is not considered an integral agent of change in dominant interpretations of the development and progression of Irish society, from the foundation of the State (in 1922) to the present day. Interest in Ireland and the Irish microcosm has more recently developed an international field, that of Irish studies. Tom Garvin (1988: 1) writes: Ireland and the Irish microcosm came under increased scrutiny, a scrutiny perhaps disproportionate to the real importance of the country itself. This attention, due to Ireland’s accidental presence at the heart of the Empire, aggravated Irish self-consciousness and self-importance. After all, all these important people were paying attention to us.