The Female Shadow of a Gunman: Feminism, Combatants, and the Challenge to Irish Nationalism

The Irish Free State's narrative of independence proclaimed "Bold, Fenian, Men." This study challenges this male-centered history by focusing on women involved in the early twentieth century anti-colonial struggle. I explore the lives of the Gifford sisters, Grace, an artistically-gifted political icon, and Sidney, a trans-Atlantic journalist and paramilitary organizer, relying on historical and literary analysis of unconventional texts including pension records, witness statements and political cartoons. The sisters' self-portrayals destabilize the traditional categories that characterize modern Irish nationalism: combatant versus noncombatant, revolutionary versus mother, and feminist versus nationalist. In turn, this challenge forces a rewriting of the Irish State's foundation, twentieth-century Irish feminism and a falsely monolithic Irish identity. My Steinmetz presentation will focus on the connections between Sidney's and Grace's feminist and nationalist activism and how their confrontations with the mid-century Irish state expose the inherent complexities between individual feminine identities and collective national identity.