British feminists in Ireland : internationalist solidarity or imperial 'sisterhood', 1900-1921

This thesis examines the participation of British feminist socialists in the Irish socio-political movements in the first two decades of the 20th century. It investigates the extent to which British feminists' intervention in the Irish feminist, labour, and pacifist movements was motivated by maternalistic imperialism. I consider if socialist women's commitment to international class struggle protected them from reinscribing and perpetuating imperialist power dynamics in their efforts to provide solidarity with Irish activists. This thesis places British and Irish individuals and organisations within a history of Irish nationalist resistance to British rule, and contextualises the relationships within debates concerning the 'Irish question' of the early twentieth century. It brings, for the first time, scholarship on imperial feminism and early socialism into dialogue, creating a new methodology with which to understand gendered political solidarity across colonial borders. This thesis demonstrates how the separate historiographies of Irish and British suffrage, and of suffrage and labour movements has marginalised women and obscured important connections between the various movements as well as omitted the ways in which imperialism impacted transnational solidarity. The chapters are structured around flashpoints: the first chapter is centred on the pre-war suffrage movement (1900-1914), the second chapter focuses on the 1913 Dublin lockout, the third chapter is structured around the 1916 Easter Rising, and the fourth chapter is focused on the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). This structure allows for an assessment of changing perspectives toward Irish nationalism, imperialism, and the British Empire during moments of high tension between Britain and Ireland. The thesis ultimately argues that British women had been politicised within a context in which feminism was intimately bound up with imperialism, and this had a profound impact on their ability to work with and for the cause of Irish women's political rights, Ireland's sovereignty, and the Irish labour movement.