Irish Women in the First World War Era

<p>This book is the first collection of essays to focus exclusively on Irish women’s experiences in the First World War period 1914-18 across the island of Ireland contextualising the wartime realities of women’s lives in a changing political landscape.</p><p>The essays consider experiences ranging from the everyday realities of poverty and deprivation to the contributions made to the war effort by women through philanthropy and by working directly with refugees. Gendered norms and assumptions about women’s behaviour are critically analysed from the rhetoric surrounding ‘separation women’ and their use of alcohol to the navigation of public spaces and the attempts to deter women from perceived immoral behaviour. Political life is also examined by leading scholars in the field including accounts from women on both sides of the ‘Irish question’ and the impact the war had on their activism and ambitions. Finally new light is shed on the experiences of women working in munitions factories around Ireland and the complexity of this work in the Irish context is explored. Throughout it is asserted that while there were many commonalities in women’s experiences throughout the British and Irish Isles at this time the particular political context of Ireland added a different and in many respects an unexamined dimension.</p><p>This book was originally published as a special issue of <em>Women’s History Review</em>.</p>