Inghinidhe na hÉireann

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Inghinidhe na hÉireann [ ɪnʲiːnʲiː nə heːɾʲən̪ ] ( German  "Daughters of Ireland" ) was a radical Irish - nationalist women's organization. Founded in 1900 under the leadership of Maud Gonne , the organization was incorporated into Cumann na mBan in 1914 , the women's organization of Irish Volunteers .

Beginnings

The origin of the organization was a meeting of 15 women in the rooms of the Celtic Literary Society in Dublin on Easter Sunday 1900. Initially the meeting was about collecting money for a present for Arthur Griffith , the later founder of Sinn Féin . Griffith had ruined his whip when he used it to beat a journalist who had labeled Maud Gonne an English spy. In the course of the subsequent conversation about Queen Victoria's just past visit to Dublin , on the occasion of which 5,000 children were invited to a picnic in Phoenix Park , the idea arose to organize a patriotic children's party based on a similar model. While the royal visit was about recruiting volunteers in Ireland for the British Army in the Boer War , Irish nationalists like Griffith and Gonne tended to support the Boers and agitated against any support for the English war effort by the Irish. The congregation spontaneously set up the Patriotic Children's Treat Committee , which quickly included 59 women. In the following weeks, donations were collected and a list of participants was drawn up, which by the end of June already included 25,000 children. The festival took place on July 1, 1900, 25,000 to 30,000 children marched through Dublin to Clonturk Park, where there was a picnic and patriotic speeches were made. The only woman among the four official speakers was Maud Gonne. The funds remaining after the festival were used to found Inghinide na hÉireann in October 1900.

Members

Most of the members came from the Catholic middle class. Maud Gonne was elected President of the Association, Alice Furlong, Jenny Wyse Power, Annie Egan and Anna Johnston were Vice Presidents. The founders included Helena Moloney (later President of the Irish Trade Union Confederation ITUC), Sinéad O'Flanagan (later wife of the first Irish President Éamon de Valera ), the actresses Máire Quinn, Molly and Sara Allgood , the doctor Kathleen Lynn and Mary Macken, leading member of the Catholic women's movement. Later, with Mary MacSwiney , Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Constance Markievicz , Margaret Buckley, Ella Young , Máire Gill and the authors Rosamond Jacob, Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington and Alice Milligan, many other culturally and politically committed and well-known women, but also many women from the working class.

job

The goals of the association were defined as follows:

  • Promote the study of Irish language , literature, history, music and the arts, especially among young people, by offering courses and teaching these subjects
  • promote and advertise Irish products
  • to oppose the reading and diffusion of English literature, the singing of English songs, the attending of vulgar English entertainment in cinemas and theaters, and the general English influence which is so detrimental to the artistic tastes and sophistication of the Irish people.
  • To set up a fund under the name "National Purposes Fund" to support the stated objectives.

The women of Inghinidhe na hÉireann sponsored courses and entertainment for children and adults and protested outside the British Army recruitment office on Dublin's O'Connell Street . They produced tableaux vivants on themes from Irish mythology and world history, as well as Irish plays, for which they recruited male actors from other nationalist groups.

From 1908 Inghinide na hÉireann published a monthly magazine, Bean na hÉireann (German about The Irish Woman ). Helena Moloney was the editor and the authors included the later leaders of the Easter Rising, Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh , Sydney Gifford, Maud Gonne , Constance Markiewicz and Moloney himself. The articles dealt with politics, women's suffrage , nationalism and language there were regular columns on union issues, fashion (in support of Irish clothing production) and gardening, articles in Irish and a children's page.

Succession

In 1914 Inghinidhe na hÉireann was incorporated into Cumann na mBan , the women's organization of the Irish Volunteers . Some of the members of the trade union movement instead joined the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly .

meaning

Historian Margaret Ward points out that Inghinidge na hÉireann was first and foremost a nationalist organization. While they were aware of the oppression of women and their role in traditional Irish culture, priority was given to national liberation. Regardless of this, the importance of the organization should not be underestimated:

"If Inghinidhe hadn't existed, an entire generation of women would never have developed the self-confidence that ultimately enabled them to assert themselves in mixed-gender organizations."

- Margaret Ward

literature

Elizabeth Coxhead: Daughters of Erin: Five Women of the Irish Renascence . 1st edition. Colin Smythe, Gerards Cross 1979, ISBN 0-901072-60-5 .

Margaret Ward: Unmanageable Revolutionaries. Women and Irish Nationalism . 1st edition. Pluto Press, London 1983, ISBN 0-86104-700-1 .

Margaret Ward: Maud Gonne, Ireland's Joan of Arc . Pandora, London 1990, ISBN 0-04-440583-9 .

Mary Trotter: Ireland's National Theaters: Political Performance and the Origins of the Irish Dramatic Movement . 1st edition. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY 2001, ISBN 0-8156-2888-9 ( Chapter "Women's Work and the Irish Nationalist Actress; Inghinidhe na hEireann" at Google Books ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ward 1983, p. 47.
  2. ↑ Ward 1983, p. 48.
  3. ↑ Ward 1990, p. 83.
  4. ^ Francis Stewart Leland Lyons: Ireland since the famine . 8th edition. Collins / Fontana, 1973, ISBN 0-00-633200-5 , pp. 248 .
  5. ↑ Ward 1983, p. 48.
  6. ↑ Ward 1983, p. 48.
  7. ↑ Ward 1983, p. 49.
  8. ↑ Trotter 2001, p. 85.
  9. ↑ Trotter 2001, p. 85.
  10. ↑ Coxhead 1979, p. 44.
  11. ↑ Trotter 2001, p. 86f.
  12. ^ Maria Luddy: Women in Ireland, 1800-1918: A Documentary History . Cork University Press, 1995, ISBN 1-85918-038-8 , pp. 300 ( on Google Books ).
  13. ↑ Trotter 2001, pp. 87-88.
  14. ↑ Trotter 2001, pp. 88-91.
  15. ↑ Trotter 2001, pp. 91-93.
  16. ↑ Maud Gonne MacBride and Inghinidhe na hÉireann. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: The 1916 Rising: Personalities and Perspectives. National Library of Ireland , archived from the original on June 27, 2013 ; accessed on June 30, 2015 .
  17. ^ Ward 1983, p. 86.