Handmaids of the Resurrection: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, Women and Irish Fascism

Abstract

Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, the most important fascist party to arise in Ireland, reached its electoral peak in 1945 when it won nine seats in the local government elections of that year. Much of its success was due to the unusually high level of support it gained from women, who made up a greater proportion of its membership than did their counterparts in the mainstream parties or in fascist movements overseas. Though the party's policies were often surprisingly accommodating of women's participation in public life, Aiséirghe's true distinctiveness lay in its assertion of the compatibility of totalitarian politics and Christian social principles. This ideological syncretism – giving a literal interpretation to the expression ‘political religion’ – proved especially attractive to those young Irishwomen who were disturbed by what they perceived as the indifference of liberal-democratic political and economic systems to women's material and spiritual interests.

Notes

¹R. Stradling, The Irish and the Spanish Civil War 1936–39: Crusades in Conflict (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 1.

²See especially M.A. Manning, The Blueshirts, 3rd ed. (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2006); F. McGarry, Eoin O'Duffy: A Self-Made Hero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); M. Cronin, The Blueshirts and Irish Politics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997); B. McLoughlin, ‘Die Irischen Blauhemden: Faschisten oder Radikale Konservative?’, Zeitgeschichte, 8:5 (1981), pp. 169–191.

³Many of the most notable exceptions to this rule remain unpublished. Of particular significance are X. Audrain, ‘Les milieux fascisants en Irelande du Sud durant la seconde guerre mondiale’ (MA thesis, Université Pierre Mendès-France, Grenoble II, 1999) and M. White's study of the National Corporate Party, ‘The Greenshirts: Fascism in the Irish Free State, 1935–45’ (PhD dissertation, University of London, 2004). See also M.M. Hull, Irish Secrets: German Espionage in Wartime Ireland 1939–1945 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003); R.M. Douglas, ‘The Pro-Axis Underground in Ireland, 1939–42’, Historical Journal, 49:4 (2006), pp. 1155–1183; and J.M. Loughlin, ‘Northern Ireland and British Fascism in the Inter-War Years’, Irish Historical Studies, 29 (1995), pp. 537–552.

⁴Notable examples are M. Durham, Women and Fascism (London: Routledge, 1998); J.V. Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923–45 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000); E. Harvey, Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); K. Passmore (ed.) Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); J. Stephenson, Women in Nazi Germany (Harlow: Longman, 2001).

⁵J. Burton and E. McCabe, We Don't Do God: Blair's Religious Belief and Its Consequences (London: Continuum, 2009).

⁶G. Ua Cuinneagáin, ‘No Other Way: Italy and Éire as Allies in War’, Wolfe Tone Weekly, 11 December 1937.

⁷G. Ó Cuinneagáin, ‘Ireland, a Missionary–Ideological State’, nd (c. spring 1940), Géaróid Ó Cuinneagáin Papers (hereafter GÓCP) 10/2/11, Department of Defence Military Archives (DDMA), Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin.

⁸Transcript of address by G. Ó Cuinneagáin, ‘Cinneamháin Nua-Aoiseach Éire’, Domhnach Phádraig, Co. Meath, 1 June 1942, 93/1/171, no. 158, Office of the Controller of Censorship records, National Archives of Ireland, Dublin.

⁹Ibid.

¹⁰Copy of an intercepted letter by Mary Carney to Rosina Stiano, c. 28 July 1943, G2/2988, Irish Military Intelligence records, DDMA.

¹¹M. Ní Choileáin to Ó Cuinneagáin, 15 July 1943, GÓCP 7/11/1, DDMA.

¹²‘An Fiolar’ [Tomás Ó Dochartaigh], Dungarvan Observer, 22 April 1944.

¹³ Drogheda Independent, 23 June 1945.

¹⁴These calculations are based on the names listed in the 1944–45 Aiséirghe membership register, GÓCP 2/1/3, DDMA. In the Irish language, the form of the female surname differs as between single and married women. Thus, for example, whereas a single woman would sign herself Nóra Ní Mhurchú, the form for a married woman with the same name would be Nóra Uí Mhurchú.

¹⁵J. Coakley and M. Gallagher, Politics in the Republic of Ireland (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 280; M.H. Kater, ‘Frauen in der NS-Bewegung’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 31 (1983), p. 206; M. Bucur, ‘Romania’ in Passmore (ed.) Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, p. 76.

¹⁶L. Ben Djaffar, ‘Les femmes et l'ordre nouveau en Belgique francophone, 1936–1945’, Cahiers d'histoire du temps présent, 4 (1998), pp. 143–171; D. Sarnoff, ‘Interwar Fascism and the Franchise: Women's Suffrage and the Ligues’, Historical Reflections, 34 (2008), pp. 123–126. The difference in context between an Ireland that possessed a feminist movement of long standing – however weak numerically and politically – and a pair of countries that would not see women obtain the parliamentary suffrage until 1944 and 1946 respectively no doubt represents at least part of the explanation for this divergence.

¹⁷V. de Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), p. 270.

¹⁸On the other hand, it certainly was not true of Aiséirghe, as it was of the AIB, that whereas female leaders ‘issued orders to the women below them, it is doubtful that they gave any to men’. S.M. Deutsch, ‘Spartan Mothers: Fascist Women in Brazil in the 1930s’ in P. Bacchatta and M. Power (eds) Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists Around the World (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 163. See also E.R. Broxson, ‘Plinío Salgado and Brazilian Integralism, 1932–1938’ (PhD dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1972).

¹⁹See R.M. Douglas, Feminist Freikorps: The British Voluntary Women Police, 1914–1940 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999).

²⁰P. Mac an Bheatha, Téid Focal le Gaoith (Dublin: Foilseacháin Náisiúnta, 1967), pp. 128–129; D. Ó Maolalaí, author interview, 15 July 1999.

²¹G. Ó Cuinneagáin, ‘Litir Pearsanta’, 18 May 1943, GÓCP 6/2/6, DDMA.

²²Minutes of Comhairle Átha Cliath, January 1946, GÓCP 5/13/1, DDMA.

²³See, e.g., G. Gori, ‘Féminité et esthétique sportive dans l'Italie fasciste’, Clio, 23 (2006), pp. 93–118. Inbal Ofer, on the other hand, has recently suggested that positive attitudes toward vigorous physical activity for women were part of ‘the more open and progressive perceptions of the human body that were at the heart of fascist ideologies all over Europe…’ Additional case-by-case research is necessary to resolve this question. I. Ofer, Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Élite in Franco's Spain (Brighton, Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2009), p. 126.

²⁴K. Liston, ‘Some Reflections on Women's Sports in Ireland’ in A. Balmer (ed.) Sport and the Irish: Histories, Identities, Issues (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2005), p. 216.

²⁵M. Ní Dhubhshláine, A Chailíní, Éistigidh! (Dublin: Craobh na hAiséirghe, 1942).

²⁷M. Ní Mhurchadha, ‘Mná Óige na hÉireann: An Obair Atá le Déanamh Acu’, in G. Ó Cuinneagáin (ed.) Aiséirghe 1942 (Dublin: Craobh na hAiséirghe, 1942), p. 37.

²⁶G. Ó Cuinneagáin, foreword to R. Ní Shéaghdha, Jeanne d'Arc: Eisiomplar Tír-Ghrádha (Dublin: Craobh na hAiséirghe, 1942).

²⁸T. Ó Dochartaigh, ‘Memo ar Litir Éamonn Uí Riain (Ard Ceannasaidhe Co. Phortlairge) de'n 29adh Márta 1944’, nd (c. April 1944), GÓCP 3/4/11, DDMA.

²⁹M. Uí Nuanáin, Limerick, to Ó Cuinneagáin, 5 May 1945; Ó Cuinneagáin to Uí Nuanáin, 10 May 1945, GÓCP 5/3/5, DDMA.

³⁰For a discussion of the fluidity of this supposed boundary in the Irish context, see L.P. Curtis, Jr., ‘Moral and Physical Force: The Language of Violence in Irish Nationalism’, Journal of British Studies, 27:2 (1988), pp. 150–189; and also C.A. Conley, ‘No Pedestals: Women and Violence in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland’, Journal of Social History, 28:4 (1995), pp. 801–818.

³¹D. Urquhart, Women in Ulster Politics 1890–1940: A History Not Yet Told (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2000), pp. 33, 111.

³²See R.M. Douglas, Architects of the Resurrection: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe and the Fascist ‘New Order’ in Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 22–29.

³³For an example of the former, see S. Bellassai, ‘The Masculine Mystique: Antimodernism and Virility in Fascist Italy’, Journal of Italian Studies, 10:3 (2005), pp. 14–35; of the latter, B.S. Farr, The Development and Impact of Right-Wing Politics in Britain, 1903–1932 (New York: Garland, 1987).

³⁴G. Brockhaus, ‘Männerbilder und weibliche Sehnsüchte: Beispiele aus der NS-Literatur von Frauen’, Die Philosophin: Forum für feministische Theorie und Philosophie, 8 (1993), pp. 8–23.

³⁵In this context, Bock reminds us that during the Nazi era, ‘Women were not fired en masse from employment and driven back to home and hearth. Actually the number and proportion of women in the labor force increased, and so did the proportion of married women and mothers. Throughout the Nazi period the employment rate among women was higher in Germany than in most other Western countries’. G. Bock, ‘Ordinary Women in Nazi Germany: Perpetrators, Victims, Followers, and Bystanders’ in D. Ofer and L.J. Weitzman (eds) Women in the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 94–95.

³⁶Ailtiri na hAiséirghe. Aiséirghe for the Worker (Dublin: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, 1944), p. 9.

³⁷Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. For National Government and Action (Dublin: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, 1943), p. 6.

³⁸Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, Aiséirghe Says… The New Order in the New Ireland (Dublin: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, 1943), p. 41.

³⁹ Aiséirghe for the Worker, p. 9. Emphasis in original.

⁴⁰E. Blythe, ‘Candid Criticism’, GÓCP 8/3/21, DDMA.

⁴¹Manuscript draft of Aiséirghe Says…, nd, GÓCP 8/3/3, DDMA.

⁴² Aiséirghe for the Worker, p. 9.

⁴³Ní Mhurchadha, ‘Mná Óga na hÉireann’, p. 38.

⁴⁴Ní Dhubhshláine, A Chailíní, Éistigidh!

⁴⁵See M.E. Daly, ‘Women in the Irish Free State, 1922–1939: The Interaction Between Economics and Ideology’, Journal of Women's History, 6:4/7:1 (1995), pp. 99–116; C. Clear, ‘Women in de Valera's Ireland 1932–48: A Reappraisal’ in G. Doherty and D. Keogh (eds) De Valera's Irelands (Cork: Mercier, 2003), pp. 104–114.

⁴⁶L. Ryan, ‘Constructing “Irishwoman”: Modern Girls and Comely Maidens’, Irish Studies Review, 6:3 (1998), p. 268.

⁴⁸J.S. Donnelly, Jr., ‘The Peak of Marianism in Ireland, 1930–1960’ in S.J. Brown and D.W. Miller (eds) Piety and Power in Ireland 1760–1960: Essays in Honour of Emmet Larkin (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), p. 266.

⁴⁹ A Cailíní, Éistighidh!, p. 11.

⁴⁷Deutsch, ‘Spartan Mothers’, p. 159.

⁵⁰Ibid., p. 4.

⁵¹J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 376.

⁵²Ibid., p. 377.

⁵³In a newspaper article, Ó Cuinneagáin expressed the hope that ‘the day will soon come upon us when permission will not be granted to any Irishman to leave the country’. G. Ó Cuinneagáin, ‘Fíor-Oideachas do Chách’, An Glór, 13 September 1941.

⁵⁴See C. Clear, ‘“Too Fond of Going”: Female Emigration and Change for Women in Ireland, 1946–1961’ in D. Keogh, F. O'Shea and C. Quinlan (eds) The Lost Decade: Ireland in the 1950s (Cork: Mercier, 2004), pp. 135–146; H.R. Diner, Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983); J.A. Nolan, Ourselves Alone: Women's Emigration from Ireland, 1885–1920 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989); D. Fitzpatrick, ‘A Share of the Honeycomb: Education, Emigration and Irishwomen’, Continuity and Change, 1:2 (1986), pp. 217–234; P. Travers, ‘“There Was Nothing For Me There”: Irish Female Emigration, 1922–71’ in P. O'Sullivan (ed.) Irish Women and Irish Migration (London: Leicester University Press, 1995), pp. 146–167.

⁵⁵See C. Koonz, ‘Nazi Women Before 1933: Rebels Against Emancipation’, Social Science Quarterly 56 (1976): 553–563.

⁵⁶For useful descriptions of the means by which this was achieved in Germany and Italy, see I. Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) and S. Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000).

⁵⁷P. Mac Aonghusa, Ar Son na Gaeilge: Conradh na Gaeilge, 1893–1993 (Dublin: Conradh na Gaeilge, 1993), p. 279.

⁵⁸See J. Stephenson, The Nazi Organisation of Women (London: Croom Helm, 1981); C. Cederna (ed.) Caro Duce: Lettere di donne italiane a Mussolini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989).

⁵⁹S. Mac Mathúna, foreword to A Chailíní, Éistigidh! Emphasis in original.

⁶⁰M.-A. Macciocchi, ‘Sexualité féminine dans l'idéologie fasciste’, Tel Quel, 66 (Summer 1976), pp. 27–28.

⁶¹K. Richmond, Women and Spanish Fascism: The Women's Section of the Falange, 1934–1959 (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 64.

⁶²See P.V. Cannistraro, ‘Mussolini's Cultural Revolution: Fascist or Nationalist?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 7 (1972), pp. 115–139.

⁶³See E. Paulicelli, Fashion Under Fascism: Beyond the Black Shirt (Oxford: Berg, 2004) and I. Guenther, Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich (Oxford: Berg, 2004).

⁶⁴M. Townson, Mother-Tongue and Fatherland: Language and Politics in German (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 127.

⁶⁵Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, For National Government and Action, p. 3.

⁶⁶See M. Mac Curtain, ‘Women, the Vote and Revolution’ in M. Mac Curtain and D. Ó Corráin (eds) Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1979), pp. 46–57; M. Ward, Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism (London: Pluto Press, 1996).