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ABSTRACT
On Saturday 6 November 1915 angry scenes occurred outside the Cunard Line offices in Liverpool when an estimated 600 men from Ireland were prevented from boarding the ocean liner RMS Saxonia for her voyage to the USA. They were surrounded by a crowd asking them to “show a bit of pluck” and deriding them as cowards. The incident was discussed in Great Britain and Ireland from Liverpool to Kerry at a period when the war was moving against all expectation, into its second year, and the emigration of large cohorts of young men of military age and fit for service was shocking to patriotic observers across the British Isles. This article explores the wider implications of this incident and the narrative it provoked in terms of perceptions of masculinity and the assumed contract of males with the state when the security of the state was under threat from an outside force. It discusses the emotive conflation of political and national identity and perceptions of heroism and cowardice with hegemonic or subversive masculinities at that time in the war when Ireland had not yet divorced itself from the metropole, and long in advance of the Irish conscription crisis of 1918.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr Jennifer Redmond, Department of History, Maynooth University, for creating a space and forum in which themes of gender and masculinity in an Irish context can be discussed and developed, and the anonymous reviewers whose observations and suggestions have been of huge value in the writing of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Fitzpatrick, “Irish Consequences of the Great War” 650.
2. Connell, Masculinities; Valente, Myth of Manliness; Beatty, Masculinity and Power. As Barr, Brady and McCaughey note in their introduction to the important text Ireland and Masculinities in History Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, there remains much analysis to be done in relation to historicising aspects of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities in competing ideologies of nation and domination in Irish history.
3. Gullace, Blood of our sons, 73.
4. Hammonds et al. “Tickling men to war”, 38.
5. Pattinson, “Shirkers,” 714.
6. Debates surrounding the Derby scheme and the conscription crisis in Britain in late 1915 can be read in Farr “Winter and Discontent” 109–41.
7. Elliott, “An early experiment with identity cards,” 175.
8. Many newspapers give accounts of the type of passengers boarding the transatlantic liners during this period of conscription fears.
9. Admiral Sir Charles Penrose Fitzgerald had encouraged the white feather movement at Folkestone in 1914, Kilday AM., Nash D.S. “White Feathers and Black Looks”. 66, and Gullace. “The White Feather Girls”.
10. Daily Record, August 16, 1915.
11. Anchor Line was established in 1840 and was controlled by the Cunard Line from 1911. See Stammer, A Guide to the Records, 91.
12. Daily Mail, November 8, 1915.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. The SS Saxonia was built in 1899. When war broke out she was used for passengers, troops and mail. Saxonia was decommissioned in 1925. See Butler, The Age of Cunard.
16. Including US and Australian papers as well as Irish and British newspapers.
17. Liverpool Echo, November 6, 1915.
18. See note 12 above.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. See note 17 above.
22. Ibid.
23. See note 12 above.
24. Letters in the Irish Times, 15 December 1915 detailed names of contributors to a fund for the stokers.
25. See note 12 above.
26. Elliott “early experiment in identity cards,” 10.
27. J. Lee Thompson, Politicians, the Press and Propaganda, 81.
28. See note 17 above.
29. See note 12 above.
30. Connolly. Workers Republic, 13 November 1915 in Connolly, Lost Writings, 182.
31. Ibid., 182.
32. This speech was reproduced in Irish papers, here, from Derry Journal, November 22, 1915.
33. Tabili “A homogeneous society”, 66.
34. Report of the committee on alleged German outrages, 1914–1916, Cd. 7894.
35. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 256.
36. Gullace, “Friends, Aliens, and Enemies,” 345–67.
37. See note 17 above.
38. Foster, Vivid faces, 213.
39. See note 17 above.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Irish Times, November 9, 1915.
43. Skibbereen Eagle, November 13, 1915.
44. Southern Star, November 13, 1915.
45. Belfast Newsletter, quoted in Irish Independent, November 8, 1915.
46. Connaught Telegraph, November 13, 1915.
47. Posters throughout Horne, Our War.
48. Donegal News, November 13, 1915.
49. Fitzpatrick “War, Revolution and the Two Irelands, 244.
50. An Cleaidheamh Soluis, November 13, 1915.
51. Roscommon Messenger, November 13, 1915.
52. McDermott, British military, 193; Bibbings, “images,” 340.
53. Weekly Irish Times, November 13, 1915.
54. Western People, November 13, 1915.
55. Weekly Irish Times, November 13, 1915.
56. Beatty, Masculinity and power, 6.
57. Freeman’s Journal, November 8, 1915.
58. Ibid.
59. Weekly Irish Times, November 13, 1913.
60. Cavan Board of Guardians, December 4, 1915.
61. Southern Star, December 4, 1915.
62. Longford Leader, November 20, 1915.
63. See note 54 above.
64. Skibbereen Eagle, November 13, 1915. The report does not clarify who blocked them.
65. Skibbereen Eagle, November 13, 1915.
66. See note 54 above.
67. De Wiel “Monsignor O’Riordan, Bishop O’Dwyer,” 96.
68. Ibid., 141.
69. Munster News, November 10, 1915.
70. Ibid.
71. November 11, 1915, De Roiste. BMHWS1698. Witness statement. 243.
72. Cavan Board of Guardians, December 4, 1915 (thanks to Anthony Gerard Farrell).
73. Irish Independent, November 29, 1915.
74. Kerry Sentinel, December, 11 1915.
75. Irish Times, November 19, 1915.
76. Sligo Champion, November 27, 1915, Letter from Swift MacNeill.
77. Irish Times, November 15, 1915.
78. Londonderry Sentinel, November 18, 1915.
79. See note 68 above.
80. Derry Journal, November 19, 1915.
81. DATI Agricultural Statistics, Ireland. 1915.
82. Ibid.
83. Fitzpatrick, “Irish consequences of the Great War.” 648.
84. Hansard, November 10, 1915, cc 1171/2.
85. See Wheatley, Nationalism.
86. for more on O’Malley see McNamara, War and Revolution.
87. Redmond, Moving Histories and Delaney, Demography.
88. Delaney, Demography, 40.
89. Saxonia passenger list.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid.
92. Tabili, “A homogeneous society?” 66.
93. Saxonia passenger list.
94. See note 89 above.
95. Ibid.
96. Roper, “Manliness and masculinity”, 347.
97. Dudink, “Trouble with men.”
98. Freemans Journal, November 22, 1915.
99. Connolly, Workers Republic, November 13, 1915.
100. Backus & Thomson, “If you Shoulder a Rifle”, 364-81.
101. The National Archives UK, Cab 37/137/111.
102. Hansard, November 17, 1915 c.1828.
103. Belfast Newsletter, December 11, 1915.
104. Valente, Myth of Manliness, 25.
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