The Irish Women's Movement: From Revolution to Devolution (review)

Linda Connolly's sociological history takes a fresh approach to examining the Irish women's movement through a sociological lens using social movement theory, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary Irish Studies through incorporation of multiple modes of analysis, including feminist and postcolonial theory, history, journalistic documentary, and sociology. The dense theoretical language of the text initially appears daunting, but the reader who navigates the challenging introduction is rewarded; the text crosses disciplinary boundaries with ease to provide a comprehensive, multifaceted insider's perspective of the women's movement in Ireland from the 1860s to the present.

Connolly reviews the current literature in Irish social history and identifies within it substantial gaps and misrepresentations. These include the view of Irish women as "late developers," the automatic pairing of Irish feminism with nationalism, and what the author sees as the "selective use of Irish feminism to corroborate the post-colonial reading of Ireland." The history charted in her examination of the Irish women's movement takes into account the experiences of those who have rejected or have been often bypassed by feminism—for example, rural women, working-class women, and Catholics working toward an inclusive model.

Far from dogmatically preaching feminism or idealizing the women's movement, Connolly casts a penetrating critical gaze that exposes the large-scale picture of the movement by discussing its racist and elitist biases, its successful and its unsuccessful tactics, and its tendency to elevate "personalities," which she rejects by identifying her own interviewees anonymously as "Founder Member IWLM" or "Member Well Woman Center, Radical Activist." The movement itself operated to change women's lives independently of the "feminist" label; Connolly notes, for instance, that such organizations as the Irish Housewives Association formed a "brave tiny army" allowing more traditional women a niche for political agency.

A feminist orientation clearly permeates the book's language and methods. Connolly incorporates the feminist credo "The Personal is Political" by transcending the political arena into the cultural manifestations of the movement, giving voice to individual activists and recognizing the diversity of the movement as essential to its success. Case studies help to weave together strands of the movement, beginning with the mainstream policy-driving organization, the Council for the Status of Women, then turning to the conservative Irish Housewives' Association, the radical Irish Women's Liberation Organization, and finally, the modern melding of interests in Irishwomen United.

Despite Connelly's stated interest in amplifying the grassroots, community-based feminism of working class, nonacademic organizations, her prose reflects the values and methods of elite academic writing. Outsiders to academic feminist theory may well find this history inaccessible, as it assumes a common discourse and cultural understanding that even the activists interviewed may not share. For scholars, however, the text legitimizes and establishes a distinct space for the Irish women's movement in sociopolitical history, while consistently challenging the field to do further research analyses, such as a study of feminist politics North and South. The text charts the women's movement in Ireland through four clear historical stages following the creation of the state in 1921: abeyance, advancement, reappraisal, and new directions. Connolly outlines each in the introduction, forcefully front-loading her argument and exploring each stage in its own chapter, drawing together the diverse elements that have shaped the movement. This emphasis on process is essential to the author's concept of history as a result of inextricable forces constantly converging and remaking themselves, that "the unity of a movement is not given at the outset but is the historically contested result of mobilization processes, in the course of which all those involved try to structure the field in accordance with their perceptions and preferences".

Beginning with the prevalent characterization of Irish women as "late developers," Connolly firmly dispels this assessment by proving empirically that during the hostile environment of the post-independence period in Ireland, feminism continued to work behind the scenes...