IRISH HISTORY

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CHAPTER 16 

WOMEN IN (ancient) IRELAND

 By all the laws of nature the entire Irish race should be extinct. So what preserved them through the centuries of oppression, through the degradation, debasement, humiliation? It was largely through the strength of character of Irish womanhood! The ever-resurgent desire to escape from bondage was fostered through the female line and passed from mother to son. Patrick Pearce knew the truth of it when he wrote the moving poem for his mother:  

I do not grudge them: Lord I do not grudge

My too strong sons that I have seen go out

To break their strength and die, they and a few,

In bloody protest for a glorious thing.

They shall be spoken of among their people

The generations shall remember them and call them blessed.

... Lord thou art hard on mothers. 

We suffer in their coming and in their going...

  The following verses from a poem by Miss Fanny Parnell show the spirit of the women:  

Now are you men, or are you kine, ye tillers of the soil?

Would you be free, or evermore the rich man’s cattle toil?

The shadow on the dial hangs that points the fatal hour—

Now hold your own! or branded slaves, for ever cringe and cower.

 

The serpent’s curse upon you lies — ye writhe within the dust,

Ye fill your mouths with beggars’ swill; ye gravel for a crust;

Your lord’s have set their bloodstained heels upon their shameful heads,

Yet they are kind — they leave you still their ditches for your beds!

 

Three hundred years your crops have sprung, by murdered corpses fed:

Your butchered sires, your famished sires, your ghastly compost spread;

Your bones have fertilised your fields; your blood has fallen like rain;

They died that ye might eat and live — God! Have they died in vain?

 

There were many other stirring poets, Emily Lawless, Ethna Carbery (1865—1911), to name but two of the better known. Maire Ni Dhubh, the grandmother of Dan O’Connell, ‘The Liberator’ was a poet of exceptional gift, and there is nothing finer in any literature than the wonderful ‘Lament’ composed by her daughter ‘Dark Eighlin,’ for her murdered husband, Art O’Leary.

In Ireland, from the remotest time of which we have any record, historical or legendary, women stood emancipated, and were eligible for the professions, and for rank and fame. In the dimmest, most ancient legends, casual references to druidesses, poetesses, women physicians and women sages, prove that in the very remote days, in which these legends were created, there was nothing uncommon or surprising in women filling these positions. In the oldest of all invocations in Irish legendary lore, Amergin, praying to the gods for safe landing says: ‘Let the learned wives of Breas and Buaigne pray that we may reach the noble woman, great Eirinn’.

The ancient Irish had a goddess, Bridget (or Brigid), who represented poetry and wisdom — and they also had a mortal Bridget (450—525) who was a famous lawgiver. In the fifth century she commanded respect, reverence, and moral obedience. Her laws and sayings were instanced, and her decisions followed as precedents by her learned successors, well down into historical times. She was the first, and only, female Christian bishop. The various Lives of Bridget describe her ordination as a bishop and, although some are clearly uncomfortable with it, none deny it. Bridget, who founded a great religious house in Kildare, with her followers, enjoyed enormous power in the early Irish church. Her power derived from elements of Celtic heritage still in the Irish Church, which revered the sacredness of the ‘Mother Goddess’. St Bridget is venerated all over the world. In England there are 19 places dedicated to her, including the oldest place of Christian worship in London, St Bride’s in Fleet Street.  

Ancient Ireland was a matriarchal society, and women were then on equality with men. Particularly great women compelled an admission of superiority too. In the eyes of the law this dictum is laid down concerning marriage, ‘To his wife belongs the right to be consulted on every subject’. Before a Brehon’s court husband and wife stood on equal terms and although the law held that the man had headship in the marriage union, it established that a man did not own his wife. ‘It is only contract that is between them,’ stated the law.  

In Ireland, after marriage, the woman did not become a chattel — thus radically differing from the custom in the other countries in Europe. Before marriage she was wooed and courted like the superior being which later she was acknowledged to be in all countries. In the exercise of the acknowledged privileges of a superior being she could scorn and frown down the attentions of chieftains and scholars — and kings too — send them home with hanging heads, and choose whomever her heart went out to. And after marriage she was not — as unfortunately was generally the case elsewhere — the property of her husband. In the eyes of the law, they were partners in a matrimonial venture.  

So far in front was the Irish law that under it the wife could remain sole owner of property that had been her own before marriage. Also, the property that was jointly owned by them could not be sold or signed away by the husband. Their rights in the joint property were equal; and the voluntary consent of both was necessary for its disposal.  

This is a remarkable acknowledgement of the equality of women in the remotest days, above all in equality persisting after marriage, when, down to recent days, even in highly advanced countries, all such rights were ascribed to the husband.  

A married woman retained the right, too, in her person to pursue a case at law, and in her own identity to recover a debt.  

That the schools were open to women is shown by a hundred references in the old records. Women attended the school of St Finian at Clonard, in the sixth century. When the daughter of the King of Cualann came to the school, to learn the psalms, Finian put the girl in the companionship of his favourite pupil, Ciaran, with whom she read them. The Bible was read in Latin at those schools so it follows that women studied the classical languages then.  

In the various centuries and in the various generations some of the more ambitious women sought and obtained the highest education (around twenty-one years of study) at least from the days of Patrick downward. Through all the centuries some of them acquired fame in this area, just as they did in other lines of what we today might have imagined the people of that time would have considered man’s endeavour. Ireland’s first woman martyr to be canonised was St Grimonia of Soissons, who was martyred near Soissons, in France in the 4^th century, before the time of St Patrick.  

There is in the Book of Ballymote a sort of history in prose and verse of Eireann’s famous women down to the time of the English invasion. Their achievements are indeed remarkable.

By reason of their equality with men in other realms, women warriors frequently felt it their duty to take up arms and march into battle with their brothers or husbands. It was only in 697 that they were exempted from warfare.  

Because of the primary importance of military duty, and the necessity of having men liable therefore, if a daughter inherited the land she had to provide and pay a warrior when a military levy was made. It is said that it was the famous law-wise Bridget, who, about the time of Christ, gave the legal decision that granted this right (to inherit land) to women.  

There were certain cases of legal separation — for legal separation for good cause then existed[1] — in which it was adjudged the right of the wife to take with her all the marriage portion and the marriage gifts, and an amount more than that for damages.  

 The old laws as well as the old stories everywhere testify that Irish women of ancient days devoted much attention to dress, toilet and the general care and adornment of the person. The care of the hair was the most elaborate of all. Constant time and attention were given to combing and dressing the hair. The oldest illuminated manuscripts reflect this. It was beautifully curled in spiral curls; both in front and hanging down the side. It was braided down the back, and confined at the end with golden rings, or with light, hollow golden balls.  

Many of their ancient ornaments and their beautiful toilet arrangements are still preserved. Very beautiful wrought brooches of silver, and gold and bronze; great pins for the hair and pins for the cloak; leather handbags with embossed patterns for carrying their personal ornaments; veils and gloves; beautiful combs; mirrors too, may be seen in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy and in the National Museum. There were scented oils for toilet use also.

The men as well as the women regularly indulged in — the bath. The ancient warriors, the Fenians, bathed every evening before they took their great meal. It was considered a shameful breach of hospitality if a bath was not at once prepared for the traveller or the stranger in the house that they honoured by their presence.  

Chivalrous respect for women, both the married and the unmarried, was a characteristic feature of Irish life in all ages. The authentic chivalry of true men was shown to them, not at all the artificial gallantry which in later days in other countries was the base counterfeit substituted for the real thing. True courtesy, respect and honour were accorded the women, every time and everywhere. In the chief homes and palaces, always the women had their special wing of the house exclusively reserved for them. It was known as the Grianan, signifying the sunny part.  

Women of ancient Ireland were sensible of the fact that they were man’s equal, and where necessary could insist upon equal treatment. A very fine case of this is related in the Book of Lismore of Cathair the Pious. She (Cathair) was a holy woman who lived the life of a hermit in the days when Saint Senan had a monastery on the Island of Inish-Cathaig. He forbade women to come upon the island. The Book says that Cathair, praying one night, saw in a vision all the churches of Ireland sending up towers of fire to heaven. But the greatest of the great fire towers went up from Inish-Cathaig. ‘Tither will I go that my resurrection may be near it’, exclaimed Cathair. But Senan, meeting her on her arrival on the shore, commanded her: ‘Go to thy sister on yon island east, for guesting. No women shall enter here.’ To which the indignant Cathair, fired for her sex and her rights, answered: ‘How canst thou say that? Christ is no worse than thou. Christ came to redeem women no less than men. No less did he suffer for the sake of women.... No less than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom. Why then shouldst thou not take women to thee in thine Island?’  

And this able pleader won over the Saint, and for once shattered his rigid rule.

In the fifteenth century there was Mairgret O’Carroll, princess of Offaly. ‘She was the woman’, says the Annalists, ‘that made the most of repairing the highways and creating bridges, churches and Mass books, and of all manner of things profitable to serve God and her soul, and, while the world stands, her many gifts to the Irish and Scottish nations shall never be numbered’.  

In statecraft and in peace making she was equally distinguished. Like all Irish women of noble repute, she led the men folk so surely and so unobtrusively that they believed they went forward of their own free will. When she announced her intention of visiting the shrine of St James of Campostella in Spain a big gathering of warriors, hardened war-dogs, led by MacGeoghagan, wished to accompany her (1445). They went together.  

Her daughter Finola — ‘the most beautiful and stately, the most renowned and illustrious of her time, her own mother alone excepted,’ — married O’Donnell, Lord of Tir-Chonnail. When O’Neill, aided by MacDonnell, invaded her territory, she ‘after the fashion of the strong-hearted and independent women of Ireland, met them at Inishowen, and made peace without leave from O’Donnell. Finola, after the death of O’Donnell in an English prison, married the golden-haired Hugh O’Neill, ‘who was thought to be King of Ireland’, ‘the most renowned, hospitable and valorous of the princes of his time’. He died in 1444. Three years later Finola, ‘renouncing all worldly vanity, betook herself into the devout life on the monastery of Killeigh; and the blessing of guests and strangers, the poor and the rich, and both of the poet-philosophers and archi-poet-philosophers be on her in that life’.  

It is beyond the scope of this short history to delve into the lives of individual women. However, it is relevant to briefly mention three uncommon Protestant women of the twentieth century who left their mark on the shaping of the Irish nation.   

Maud Gonne (1865—1953), a famous actress and beauty, and the unrequited love of the poet William Butler Yeats was a feminist decades before her time. She was born in Aldershot, England but her father, who was of Irish descent, was posted to Dublin in 1882. While recuperating in France from tuberculosis, she was influenced by Lucian Millevoye who advised her to act on her sympathies for the cause of Irish freedom. She spent the 1890s touring France, England, Scotland and America, promoting the cause and collecting funds. Back in Dublin she founded the revolutionary woman’s movement ‘Inghinidhe na hEireann’ (Daughters of Ireland). She was a staunch republican and reformist and married an Irish soldier, John McBride, who died before a British firing squad for his part in the Easter Rising of 1916. She was arrested in Dublin in 1918 and imprisoned in Holloway prison for six months. Their son, Sean, was one of the founder members of Amnesty International and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.   

Maude Gonne McBride captured some of the disillusionment of Irish patriots, and some of the vision and heartache of all the Irish people, when she wrote ‘It was then that I saw her, Cathleen Ni Houlihan [Ireland] in all her beauty, her dark hair blowing in the wind, going towards the hills, springing from stone to stone, over the treacherous surface of the bog. The gleaming white stones before her marked her path and faded into the darkness. I heard a voice say “you are one of those little stones on which the feet of the Queen rest a moment on her way to freedom.” Then the sadness of the night and loneliness overwhelmed me and I wept. Now old and not triumphant, I know the blessedness of having been one of those little stones on the path to freedom.’

  The first woman to be elected to the British Parliament was the aristocratic Constance Gore-Booth (Countess Markievicz), who led the Suffragette movement and later became a commander in the Irish Republican Army. Born in London in 1868, she was educated in County Sligo, where her father held the family estates. While living in Dublin, in 1906 she rented a cottage in Ballally, and it was there that she came across back issues of The Peasant and Sinn Féin publications left behind by the previous tenant, poet and writer Padrick Colum. Her interest in Irish independence was aroused, and she joined Inghinidhe na hEireann and later founded Na Fianna for the drilling of boys in the use of arms. She took her place in the fighting of 1916 and was afterwards in line for the firing squad. She was sentenced to death but was reprieved. She served as a defiant guest in a score of British prisons. She was a member of the first Irish Parliament and was a member of parliament when she died in 1927.

An interjection here will demonstrate how the influence of the British press (Australian newspapers reprinted articles from The Times verbatim) or British journalists permeated the lives of Australians then. (Not that much has changed![2] The events of the Easter Rising received extensive coverage in the Australian press. It was grossly overestimated that the rebel force numbered 12,000 of which 2,000 belonged to the Citizen Army. (There were in fact 1,300 volunteers and 200 of Connolly’s Citizens Army.) The reports also repeatedly show an attempt to paint the Republicans as cowardly, looters, and devoid of humanity, such as their alleged firing on ‘elderly and unarmed reservists’, whilst amazingly an Irish girl ‘caught in a hail of sniper’s bullets’ dragged 200 British soldiers to safety! No need to comment on that one!  

From the Courier, 1 May 1916: Countess Constance Markievicz, ‘attired in male clothing of semi-military cut’, with two service revolvers strapped to her belt, led her men in the attack. A Melbournite caught in the Shelbourne Hotel (Dublin) recounted that ‘she deliberately shot six of her men who refused to obey her commands immediately’.  

Again, comment would surely spoil it.  

Lady Gregory, Isabella Augusta Persse (1852—1933), born in County Galway, was raised in the Protestant landed gentry tradition. She studied the Irish language and Irish folklore and was a life-long friend of the poet W.B. Yeats. Her house at Coole Park became a meeting place for writers of the Literary Revival. She was a playwright and a benefactor of poets and playwrights. She crystallised many of the Irish aspirations and with Yeats she founded the Abbey Theatre, where many of the Irish playwrights work was performed. She wrote 27 plays in all, mostly sympathetic observations of Irish rural life highlighting the negative results of British corruption and mismanagement in Ireland. The ideas and dialogue of many of Yeats’ plays are attributed to her. 

It was this respect for women, permeating society in every age in Ireland, that gave such moral fibre to the Irish race as enabled it not only to persist through later long and fearful centuries of oppression unparalleled, under which other races would have disappeared — not only to persist through these terrors, but to come out of them still morally stronger that almost any other of the most favoured peoples of Europe. God and Bridget blessed the race that blessed the name of Woman.

It is ironic that women were more liberated and more emancipated two thousand years ago in pagan Ireland than they were ever again to be in almost any of the civilised nations of the world.