Cumann Na mBan & Women in Irish Republican Paramilitary Organisations, 1969-1986

1. Introduction The year 2014 marked the centenary of the founding Cumann na mBan, the Irish Republican women's organisation. On April 5, 1914, over 100 women attended a meeting of what was to become Cumann na mBan in Wynn's Hotel, Dublin, presided over by Agnes O'Farrelly. The formation of a Republican women's organisation succeeded the founding of the male-only Irish Volunteers. The organisation played an active role during the 1916 rising, although it had split less than two years earlier into pro- and anti-Redmond factions. (1) Since members of Cumann na mBan were not allowed to carry weapons, some of their activists joined the ranks of James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army to take an active part in the fighting. The group reorganised following the Rising, establishing hundreds of branches in all 32 Counties of Ireland as well as abroad. Nonetheless, during the Treaty debates, Cumann na mBan split again. Thereupon, the end of the civil war marks the beginning of a weakening of the organisation. A few years later, again, a significant section followed Constance Markievicz and Eamonn de Valera into the 1926-formed Fianna Fail party (Conlon1969; Matthews 2010 & 2012; McCarthy 2007; Ni Chathmhaoil and Reinisch 2014; Ward 1983: 119-247). While the first decade of its existence was the most active and most influential in the history of Cumann na mBan, the organisation continued to play a significant role in the Republican Movement in later decades. Regardless of their activism in the Republican Movement, the official commemorations marking the centenary of Cumann na mBan neglect the existence of the women's organisation in these later decades. Indeed unsurprisingly, Mary McAuliffe's memorial address at Glasnevin Cemetery ends with the decline of Cumann na mBan in 1923. (2) Additionally, it has been claimed that Cumann na mBan ceased to exist during the 1970s and 1980s. This claim was first raised in an Irish News article back in 1993 and was subsequently strongly opposed by Cumann na mBan at that time. (Ni Chathmhaoil and Reinisch 2014: 102f.) It was repeated in a report about the Cumann na mBan centenary event in the paper An Phoblacht/Republican News in April 2014. (3) * * Certainly, only few researchers acknowledge the contribution by Cumann na mBan to the Republican Movement during the recent conflict in the North of Ireland. One of these is Theresa O'Keefe. In a recently published study on Republican feminism, she argues: Nonetheless, over the years Cumann na mBan had become an autonomous body, adopting its own constitution and engaging in its own military activities. There remained, however, a high level of cooperation between Cumann na mBan and the [Irish Republican] Army. Often they worked on the same assignment under the direction of the leadership of the IRA (O'Keefe 2013: 92). While O'Keefe's study is an important contribution to Republican women's activism and Republican feminism in the North of Ireland, it provides little data on Cumann na mBan itself. In light of this, my article will go further and provide additional data collected through extensive interviews with former and current activists of Cumann na mBan. These data will provide students of contemporary Irish and British history with a clear understanding of who the women were that formed Cumann na mBan during the so-called "Troubles". The conflict in the North of Ireland is not only the longest war waged in the Western hemisphere since 1945 but, according to John Whyte, the region is "the most heavily researched area on earth" (1991: viii). Although this may be true, Republican women have long been neglected by researchers. As a result, Cumann na mBan during this period is largely missing from literature and most of the books and articles on the recent Irish Republican organisations have not dealt with Cumann n mBan in any depth at all. Contrary, for many years, the role played by women in Irish politics and, in particular, Cumann na mBan was neglected. …