| dc.description.abstract | From 1801 to 1922 Ireland occupied a specific position in the British Empire under a law
called the Act of Union. The Act of Union came into being because of the Irish rebellion of
1798 and did not address the religious and cultural oppression that majority Catholic Ireland
suffered at the hands of Protestant England. Starting with the 1798 rebellion and blossoming
after the potato famine of 1849, Irish nationalism became a force to be reckoned with,
eventually ending in the establishment of the independent Irish Free State.
During the time of conflict, people from each side sought effective ways to spread their
beliefs and encourage others to choose their side. Many artists relied on symbolic imagery
that was instantly recognizable and rousing. Goddesses based on Celtic mythology had
represented Ireland for centuries (Martin 2003, 34) and depictions of young, sensual and
inviting girls marked the English view of the Irish lands. These female figures, essentialized
in the figure of Hibernia, represented Ireland while masculine and animalistic figures
represented the Irish as a race (Innes 1994, 6). This view was problematized by Irish
nationalists who reimagined Irish women as pious and pure mothers committed to the Church
and the Irish state. This in turn allowed for the ‘sons of Mother Ireland’ to reaffirm their
manhood by banishing the male colonizer and “restoring her to her youthful beauty” (Innes
1994, 10).
Both of these personifications represent a specific idea of the norms and values of the Irish
nation as well as the role women are allowed to play in the construction of that nation.
Through the analysis of an English cartoon using Hibernia to criticize the Irish nationalists
and a play written by prominent Irish poet W.B. Yeats aimed at mobilizing young Irishmen to
the nationalist cause, I argue that female figures were employed by both sides of the conflict
to entice men to fight, either for a romanticized wife or a dishonored mother. Additionally, I
argue, these glorified depictions solidified the positions women (and to a certain extend men)
were allowed to occupy in society as living symbols of the Irish nation. | |
