Gender Roles in Irish Culture
A short discussion of gender relations in Irish history.
Location: Ireland
Status of Men and Women in Early Ireland
Traditional Irish society placed women inside the home and men at work outside it. Powerful queens like Medb and Macha played prominent roles in Irish mythology, but women did not rule in Gaelic Ireland.[1][2] Only men led the túath or trained as poets, warriors, monks, and craftsmen. Women were primarily valued for their ability to produce healthy children and contribute to farmwork. They needed a man to represent them legally for all matters outside of marital disputes. A daughter passed from her father's control to her husband's, and in old age to her sons'.[3]
Women Under Brehon Law
Despite their limited roles, women in early Ireland enjoyed greater legal rights than many of their European counterparts. The brehon laws provided clear protections for Irish women and their property. Marriages were formed by contract and negotiated by the couple's families. A bride could bring her own property to a marriage and keep it as her own in cases of divorce or widowhood. She received a share of the farm's revenue, especially as it related to domestic work, and her own bride price.[3][4] In religious orders, nuns and abbesses claimed greater respect and often formed close friendships with monks and abbots.[5]
Changing Gender Roles in Modern Ireland
This dynamic of men working and going to war while women raised families persisted through the 18th century. The textile industry gave many Irish women their first taste of working life and personal income. From their homes, they spun flax and crocheted lace for eager markets abroad. When the textile industry collapsed, women emigrated in search of greater opportunity. By 1900, the majority of Irish emigrants were women.[6][7]
In the turmoil of 19th and 20th century Ireland, women entered the political arena with growing confidence. New women's organizations advocated for, among other things, access to higher education and more equitable property laws. Women formed their own unions and, for a time, led the charge for tenant rights through the Ladies' Land League. In 1916, two hundred women took part in the Easter Rising, serving as nurses, cooks, and active combatants. Two years later, they would gain the right to vote.[8]
The next major wave of women's activism in Ireland began in the 1970s over reproductive rights. The first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, took office in 1990. She was succeeded by Mary McAleese in 1997. Contemporary Irish society recognizes equality between the genders. Irish women are more likely to stay at home and raise children, but they are also more likely to pursue higher education than men.[8]
Bibliography
Thomas Mooney, A History of Ireland, From its First Settlement to the Present Time, Including a Particular Account of its Literature, Music, Architecture, and Natural Resources (Boston: P. Donahoe, 1853), 252-253.
Joseph Dunn, The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin bó Cúalnge (Gloucester: Dodo Press, 2007).
Lisa M. Bitel, Land of Women: Tales of Sex and Gender From Early Ireland (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 8.
T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 108.
Bitel, 186.
James S. Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine (Stroud: The History Press, 2013).
Pauline Jackson, "Women in 19th Century Irish Emigration," The International Migration Review 18, no. 4 (1984): 1004-020. doi:10.2307/2546070.
Sinéad McCoole, No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years, 1900-23 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003) 11-19.
"Statistics," UNICEF, December 27, 2013, UNICEF, accessed February 27, 2017.
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