Winning the Vote for Women
The Irish Citizen newspaper and the suffrage movement in Ireland
Louise Ryan
The campaign for women’s votes in Ireland coincided with the nationalist movement, the First World War, the rise of the trade union movement, the cultural revival and, of course, the 1916 Rising. It culminated in 1918, with Ireland electing the first woman to parliament in London.
However, the Irish suffrage movement was not a single-issue group. It did not merely campaign for votes, but also presented a feminist critique of the plight of Irish women in early twentieth-century society. The Irish Citizen newspaper, as the voice of the suffrage movement, provides an important insight into the various campaigns and concerns of this fascinating movement.
The paper was self-consciously feminist, and, in addition to covering the major events of this tumultuous period, it addressed taboo subjects like rape, domestic violence and child abuse. This book brings together extracts from the paper with analysis, commentary and informative contextual background. First published in 1996, this new edition has been comprehensively updated and revised.
Listen here to Louise talking about the book and the suffrage movement in Ireland with Ellen Gunning on Dublin City FM's Mediascope programme.
Louise Ryan, originally from Cork, is a professor of sociology at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Irish Feminism and the Vote (1996) and (with Margaret Ward) Irish Women and the Vote (2007) as well as numerous academic papers on suffragism in journals including Women’s History Review and Women’s Studies International Forum.
