Irish Women at War: The Twentieth Century

This book is the first to assess the impact of conflict on women in 20th-century Ireland, and how women responded to and influenced these conflicts themselves. Their roles ranged from combatants, pioneers and workers, victims and survivors, to prisoners, poets, playwrights, and artists. Irish women have played their part in many spheres during two World Wars and three national conflicts in the 20th century. Drawing on original research from a range of international scholars, and covering the span of the century, the book considers women and war through a myriad of themes - militarism, morality, political activism, and motherhood - and through the lens of a variety of sources, from memoirs to political propaganda, artistic output to activism on the streets. Whatever their socio-economic or political background, a common thread of engagement links Irish women in wartime as they challenged and changed societies subsumed by hostilities.