Maria Luddy

Women and philanthropy in nineteenth-century Ireland

Religion played a major role in directing the philanthropy of Irish women in the nineteenth century. The most extensive systems of welfare were provided by Catholic female religious communities, but substantial and extensive charity was also provided by Protestant denominations. There was much rivalry between Catholic and Protestant charity workers, particularly in work relating to orphaned and destitute children. While the denominational basis of charity work prevented women of different religious persuasions from working together as philanthropists, lay Catholic women were profoundly affected by the limits placed on their activities by nuns. Lay Catholic women had no major tradition of organising in institutions or societies for charity work and, in consequence, the experience of organising for social change came later to Catholic women than it did to Protestant women. Catholic women were slow not only to join reform organisations but also to campaign for changes in social legislation or to demand suffrage.

Unmarried Mothers in Ireland, 1880–1973

This article explores the changing experiences and representation of Ireland’s unmarried mothers from 1880 to 1973. It focuses on the stigma of illegitimacy in political and cultural discourse and the representation of unmarried mothers as immoral and their children as a drain on resources. These remained constant themes within the discourse of unmarried motherhood in Ireland throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article uses the records of philanthropic, government and religious organisations to chart the rising interest in the moral reformation of unmarried mothers at the end of the nineteenth century and rising tolerance towards them by the end of the twentieth century.

An outcast community:the ‘wrens’ of the curragh

Abstract This article examines the lifestyle of a particular group of women who operated as prostitutes and were known as the ‘Wrens of the Curragh’. It also briefly examines the extent of prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland and the particular Catholic ethos of those Magdalen asylums operated byfemale religious. The Irish discourse on prostitution was very much formed by the rescue work of female religious and prostitutes were judged in spiritualand moral terms. The information available on the ‘Wrens’ comes to us primarily through the work of an English journalist, James Greenwood. The discourse is quite different in many respects to that which pertained in Catholiccircles though there are also a number of similarities. Greenwoods account of the ‘Wrens’ gives us a unique insight into the everyday existence of a group of ‘outcast’ women who worked in their own interests and created their own community network away from ‘respectable’ society.

“abandoned women and bad characters”: prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland

Abstract This article examines the extent of prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland. It centres on the problem of prostitution as one of visibility and the prostitute as a site of possible contagion, both physical and moral. The legal powers given to the police to control prostitution were used when prostitution became a particular problem and the focus of public and clerical condemnation. However, for the public prostitution was most acceptable when it was hidden from public view. Attempts to rescue and reform prostitutes came from lay and religious women in particular. The establishment of Magdalen Asylums offered the Irish public a place of confinement for their ‘wayward’ daughters, placing them away from the public gaze. Examining the registers of these asylums reveals that ‘fallen women’ were capable of using these institutions for their own ends, particularly in the nineteenth century. The decline in prostitution evident in Ireland from the 1870s owned much to the new ‘morality’ being imposed on...

Women and charitable organisations in nineteenth century Ireland

Abstract Irish women played an important role in voluntary charity work in 19th-century Ireland. Initially these women were involved in fundraising for male run charities. Individual women soon recognised the need for specialised charities and began to organise other women in societies which catered for the most vulnerable members of society, poor women, prostitutes and destitute children. They later broadened the scope of their work to provide vocational training for women in the teaching and nursing professions. These philanthropic women also formed groups involved in the anti-slavery and temperance movements. Lay voluntary societies were most often formed by women of the protestant or Quaker faiths. The role of lay Catholic women in charitable societies was gradually taken over by female religious orders which developed rapidly in Ireland after mid-century. Most of the women involved in lay voluntary work did not seek publicly to alter the social conditions which led to poverty and destitution. A number of women did, however, individually campaign to change those laws which affected women and children. Through charity work women in 19th-century Ireland broadened the working horizons for all women and promoted their right to be active social agents in Irish society.

History and politics

If Hegels famous definition, Weltseele zu Pfer? de, can be applied without fear of hyperbole to a historical figure, it can surely be applied to Alexander the Great. True, the German philoso? pher coined this epithet for Napoleon, whom he had glimpsed on horseback after the battle of Jena, and indeed it also fits the empereur, too, for without his actions, and the reactions they caused, modern Europe is inconceivable. In the same way the Hellenistic oikumene and its offshoots, the universality of the Roman Empire and Christianity, are in the end inconceivable without Alexanders revolutionary impact in many fields. It was a revolution ? as momentous for subsequent life and thought as the discovery of America and the demonstration that our universe is not geocentric... ? (Moses Hadas). The fact is that few exceptional personalities belonging to mankinds past have aroused such enthusiasm in biographers and historians as Alexan? der, the son of another figure of historical stature, Philip of Macedon. Witness the famous Einleitung, having all the character of a fervent hymn, that precedes the Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen by J.G. Droysen (1835), a book which, though superseded in many of its details, still stands out as a memorable historical exposition and above all a work of art, overshadowing many subsequent monographs which appear feeble and often pedantic in comparison. This is true, for instance, if only partially so, of the picture of this age and leader drawn by K.J. Beloch (Griechische Geschichte, 2nd ed., vols. III and IV, 1922-1927). According to this author, Alexander was neither a great statesman nor a great strategist, for it is argued that the bulk of his political successes are to be attributed to his father, Philip, and that his three decisive victories over the Persians are really due to the strategical genius of Parmenion. Yet despite these evident prejudices, stemming from a rationalistic ? professorial? aversion to that brilliance that transcends all ?normal? human standards, we are indebted to Belochs sober criticism for having clarified many details. Above all, he placed the incisive historical role of Philip, heralding the achievements of his son and heir, in true perspective, and pointed to the essential part the above-mentioned Macedonian general had in the military feats of the young king during the first half of his rule.

Working Women, Trade Unionism and Politics in Ireland, 1830–1945

Among the episodes of Irish women’s trade union activism rescued from the archives by Theresa Moriarty is an account of a strike in Carroll’s tobacco factory in Dundalk. About 200 women worked in the factory in 1912 and were paid around four shillings a week. The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), which had organised the women workers, sought an increase of one shilling a week for them. Carroll’s responded by telling the women that they were being put on piecework, something the management promised would enable the women to increase their weekly wages by 50 per cent. The women refused and 50 workers went on strike on 5 January 1912. The strike lasted for nine weeks. In that period the town witnessed a group of women picketing the factory daily, confronting those women workers who continued to work in the factory, attending weekly union meetings held in the town square, and engaging in what the local newspaper termed ‘discreditable’ conduct. Their actions were reported with horror by the local press. On 13 January, the Dundalk Democrat observed: There were some exciting and discreditable incidents in Dundalk on Saturday night in connection with the strike at Messers Carroll’s tobacco factory. A number of girls who had worked during the strike, whilst engaged in the usual Saturday night promenade or shopping were attacked by those who had left off duty, and came in for rough treatment. One girl, whose name was stated to be Lennon, came in for a good deal of abuse at the hands of the strikers and she was obliged to find refuge in Messers Fakin’s shop in Clanbrassil street. It was only when the Very Rev. Father Corcoran interceded for her that she found it possible to make her way home, in the company of the Rev. Gentleman. Another girl was pursued into a shop and the windows smashed. The father of a girl who remained at work was assaulted by some of the girl strikers and male friends. Still another girl was badly mauled going home through Church Lane. As a consequence of this violence Messers Carroll have made arrangements for their employees to sleep and eat on the premises. The girls who went to work on Monday morning — about 150 — did so an hour earlier than usual, so that the strikers who had assembled at the usual hour to indulge in what they called ‘peaceful picketing’ were disappointed. On several evenings the girl strikers and their sympathisers paraded the town in crowds, booing and hissing at the houses of those who remained ‘on’. Some stones were thrown and the windows of the workers’ houses (which were guarded by the police) broken. Messers Carroll’s are protected by over a dozen police. It is stated that some 50 extra police are stationed in Dundalk during the week with two district inspectors. The rate payers will have to pay for these.1