Policing Women’s Bodies in an Illiberal Society: The Case of Ireland

Abstract

This journal article outlines the history of the policing women’s bodies in Ireland in the context of law, crime and reproduction. It does this by means of three case studies. The first case study explores the policing of women’s bodies in relation to sexuality. The second case study focuses on reproduction and the policing of women’s bodies in relation to reproduction. The third and final case study considers the policing of women’s bodies in relation to abortion. Taken together, these three case studies provide an overview of the capacity, and indeed the readiness, that exists in Irish society to police women’s bodies and to do so particularly in relation to sexuality and reproduction.

Keywords:

• social justice
• women
• policing bodies

Notes

Famous burnings of Irish women for witchcraft include the condemnation for witchcraft and heresy of Dame Alice Kytler by Bishop Richard Ledrede and the burning of her maid Petronella in Kilkenny in the 1320s, (Brennan, 2000, p. 37) and the burning to death in 1895 by her husband, family, and neighbors of 26-year-old Bridget Cleary, believed to be a changeling left by fairies who had taken the real Bridget away (Bourke, 1999). Bourke (1999, pp. 33–34) details many 19th-century newspaper accounts in Ireland of similar incidents, most of them involving elderly women burned, beaten, drowned, or otherwise tortured and/or killed in order “to put the fairy out.” Irish society was superstitious, fearful of fairies, and watchful for changelings, and it remained this way until the country began to develop economically in the late decades of the 1800s, when the people became moral and civilized, and the Catholic Church assumed power (see Inglis, 1998b).

This took place in 1921. An independent Irish Republic was established in 26 counties in the south of Ireland. Six counties in the north of Ireland remained part of Britain.

The major watershed in 19th-century Ireland was the Great Famine. This was caused primarily by the increasing size of the population and the response of family farmers to it. The population stood at 5,000,000 in 1800. By 1841 it had risen to 8,000,000. When a male family member got married, the father subdivided his holding and gave a certain portion to the married son. Families were large and holdings generally small and this led to the fragmentation of holdings. By 1841 two-thirds of the population lived on the land and one-half of farms were less than five acres. Such holdings could only sustain the growth of a basic crop like the potato and, as the potato could not be efficiently stored, the rural population was vulnerable to crop failure. Crop failure happened in 1845 and again in 1846. The result was widespread hunger and death. By 1851 the population was almost 2,000,000 lower than in 1846 and at least 1,000,000 had died of starvation. The effect on rural life was traumatic. It prompted a major readjustment in the family system. The subdivision of land and the pattern of family life it supported was no longer an economic option. It was abandoned and replaced by an inheritance system organized around the stem family. This, to simplify, meant that one son was chosen to inherit the entire farm—the principle of impartibility of inheritance. Although in theory the chosen heir was the eldest son, there is some evidence that in Ireland this was not always the case (see O Grada, 1980; also Lyons, 1973, pp. 51–52). The rest of the family were, however, effectively, dispossessed. Although provision was to be made for them, in the Irish context this, in reality, meant emigration.