“Without women, the war could never have happened”: representations of women’s military contributions in non-state armed groups

ABSTRACT

Feminist international relations theory argues that male consolidation of power in the aftermath of armed conflict often occurs as men gain the status of heroes in the post-war appraisals. Explorations of republican commemoration in the North of Ireland have uncovered the dominance of the male protagonist with a notable relative absence of militant republican women. Militarized masculine narratives and patriarchal understandings of what is deemed a combatant role, and therefore deemed worthy of commemorating, consistently fail to value or recognize women’s multiple and vital wartime contributions. This article argues that conventional definitions of military contributions and combatant roles are imprecise, highly gendered and ultimately function as a mechanism to denigrate and exclude women’s wartime labor. Based on in-depth interviews with former combatants, the article critically explores the ways in which republican women themselves conceptualize their contributions to armed struggle. Emerging from this is a theoretically rich narrative of women’s multiple and diverse military roles which firmly challenge the limited definition of “a person with a weapon.” It is suggested that by paying careful attention to the lives of combatant women, feminist scholars can use their experiences, narratives and meanings to challenge existing frameworks and discourses, and redefine combatant roles and wartime contributions.

KEYWORDS:

• Female combatants
• conflict transition
• combatant roles
• republican women
• commemoration

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the women who generously participated in this research. I am grateful to Theresa O’Keefe, Honor Fagan, Cynthia Enloe and Colin Coulter for their helpful thoughts and insights on earlier drafts of this article. I also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Niall Gilmartin holds a PhD in sociology from Maynooth University, Ireland. His forthcoming book, Female Combatants After Armed Struggle: Lost in Transition? will be published by Routledge in their Studies in Gender and Global Politics series. He lectures in sociology and politics at Maynooth University and Dublin City University.

Notes

1. Irish republicans use the terms “North of Ireland” or “the Six Counties” instead of the official title of “Northern Ireland” to refer to the geopolitical territory that remains under British rule. As a mark of respect to the participants, I employ their republican terminology throughout this article.

2. Over the course of the Troubles, it is estimated that 3,525 people lost their lives. Of these, republican militants were responsible for the deaths of approximately 2,000, with state forces and loyalist paramilitaries accounting for the deaths of the other 1,525 lives lost. The majority of those killed were civilians or non-combatants. In all, 294 known IRA volunteers lost their lives in the conflict.

3. None of the participants who identified themselves as “republican activists” detailed exactly what that role entailed. My own interpretation of this description is that of an active support role for the IRA, including but not exclusive to communications, weapons storage, weapons transportation, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, and lookout patrols, among others.

4. Interview with author, June 2012.

5. Interview with author, June 2012.

6. In the very early years of the Troubles, the Provisional IRA operated along strict gender lines whereby males occupied the “frontline” ranks of the IRA and females were restricted to the “supporting roles” in Cumann na mBan. The Cumann na mBan roles typically included weapons storage, communications, lookout patrols, weapons transportation, among others. Stemming directly from the demands of republican women, rules barring women from the IRA were changed in the early 1970s. However, Cumann na mBan continued to exist right up to the mid-1980s, providing a space for those republican women who did not want a role within the IRA but did wish to make a military contribution.

7. In the early 1970s the British army began nightly house raids and arrest operations known as “Duck Patrols.” In reaction, groups of republican women began patrolling the streets in order to alert active republicans of the presence of state forces. They became known as “Hen Patrols.”

8. I use the word “successful” to denote the ways in which IRA volunteers would appraise this operation, and in no way should it be interpreted as disregarding the pain and suffering inflicted by such actions.

9. Interview with author, June 2012.

10. Interview with author, September 2012.

11. Stands for gun lectures, which in the early days of the Troubles were held in houses of IRA members or sympathizers in cities and towns in the North.

12. Interview with author, June 2012.

13. Interview with author, November 2012.

14. Interview with author, November 2013.

15. The Falls Road is the main arterial route through the republican heartland of West Belfast.

16. Interview with author, June 2012.

17. Interview with author, June 2012.

18. Interview with author, September 2013.

19. Interview with author, June 2012.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Irish Research Council.