University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the "United Irishman" Author(s): Karen Steele Source: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 84-105 Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557556 . Accessed: 27/01/2015 17:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua. http://www.jstor.org Karen Steele Raising Her Voice for Justice: Gonne Maud Feminist and the United Irishman critics have often claimed that an Irish nationalist identity is inher has repeatedly described the ently chauvinistic. Eavan Boland, for example, challenges for a woman poet writing in a constraining national tradition that females as figures of the nation. Vainly looking for herself in the Irish literary tradition of aislingi and ballads, Boland laments that nationalist writings "simplified women almost out of existence" by relying on "static, pas emblematizes sive, ornamental figures'* that do no credit to women or poetry.1 An examina tion of the nationalist press during the Celtic Revival and, especially, of Maud Gonne?whose frequent journalistic writings promoted gender equality as well liberation, and were prominently published in the most renowned Boland's as nationalist newspaper of the day, the United Irishman?challenges sertion. Such a context alters how we read Irish fin de si?cle literature, as well as the supposedly competing movements of feminism and nationalism. as national and literary critics have previously drawn upon the nationalist press to trace the development of important cultural and political organizations in Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 Little at Historians tention has been paid to the extensive role that newspapers played in arousing nationalist sentiment in Ireland, in educating public opinion, and in framing the cultural and political debates of the day. The Irish press at the turn of the century displayed a surprisingly diverse range of political thought. The pub lishers of fin de si?cle Ireland produced some 172 nationalist papers, 73 Union i. Eavan Boland, "A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in a National to note my gratitude and Creative Development Grant, which (Dublin: Attic Press, 1994), p. 91.1 wish University Research Ireland in the summer brary in Dublin, Tradition" in A Dozen Lips for the support of a Texas Christian assisted my travel to the National Li of 1997. 2. Press (New See, for example: Virginia Glandon, Arthur Griffith and the Advanced-Nationalist York: Peter Lang, 1985); Liz Curtis, The Cause of Ireland (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994); Revolutionaries (London: Pluto, 1989); CL. Innes, Woman and Na Margaret Ward, Unmanageable of Georgia Press, 1993); Virginia tion in Irish Literature and Society, 1880-1933 (Athens: University and the of the 1798 Re Shan Van Vochr. Women, Commemoration Crossman,"The Republicanism, bellion" Eighteenth Century Oxford Life, 22 (1998), 122-139; as well as R F. Foster, WB. University Press, 1997). NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW/IRIS Yeats: A Life (Oxford: ?l REANN ACH NUA, 3:2 (SUMMER/SAMHRADH, This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1999), 84-IO5 Raising Her Voice for lustice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman ist papers, 27 Labour papers, and 60 independent offerings.3 The press in Ire land became an increasingly important and diverse source of political educa tion for the Irish citizenry for a number of reasons, including rising literacy, the British government's shift in its Irish policy from coercion to conciliation, and the political vacuum following failure of the Irish Party's long fight for Home Rule.4 In the pages of the Irish press, ideas germinated about what cultural and political organizations should develop. Among the many nationalist papers of the day, significant differences persisted between constitutional nationalists, who supported the Irish Party in the British Parliament, and advanced nation alists, who promoted a cultural and economic revival in Ireland instead. Of those advanced nationalist newspapers, Virginia Glandon notes that the United Irishman, together with the Shan Van Vocht and the Irish Peasant, "reflected some of the leading ideas and ideologies which formed the basis for advanced nationalist thought in Ireland" before the Irish Republican Brotherhood several years later.5 revived William Rooney and Arthur Griffith established the United Irishman in 1899, in the wake of the centenary of the rebellion of 1798.6Orchestrated byW.B. Yeats, Alice Milligan, Anna Johnston, Maud Gonne, John O'Leary, and others, who commissioned monuments, and gave lectures to re planned demonstrations, movement heroes of the commemorative the member, '98, sought to legitimate nationalism and unite its various factions through educating the public about Ireland's rebel past7 Implicitly, it also fostered the emergent feminist movement Virginia Glandon, p. i; see also "Index of Irish Newspapers, ter, 1976), 84-121 for these numbers. 4. Glandon, p. 1. 3. 5. Glandon, 1900-1922" ?ire-Ireland 11,4 (Win p. 5. in 1791, the United at the time, and for generations after Irishmen were considered "the vital germ of Irish radicalism." Led by Wolfe Tone and Edward Fitzgerald, the organi zation united Catholics and Protestants in a shared desire to liberate Ireland from British colonial 6. Founded wards, rule. See Nancy Curtin, The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); United Irishmen: Republicanism, Radicalism, and Rebellion, ed. David Dick son (Dublin: Lilliput, 1993); Jim Smyth, Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in Late Eighteenth Century Dublin (Dublin: Gill, 1992); Mary Helen Thuente, The Harp Re-Strung: The United Irishman and Kevin Whelan, and the Rise of Literary Nationalism (Syracuse: Syracuse University and the Construction The Tree of Liberty: Radicalism, Catholicism Press, 1996). Eighteenth-Century tity (Cork: Cork University issue on the topic titled Ireland, 1798-1998: From Revolution P.MacCubbin, 22, (November 1998). 7. Press, 1994); of Irish Iden Life also recently published a special toRevisionism and Beyond, ed. Robert Gould, John Kelly, and Deirdre Tooney, eds Letters ofW.B. Yeats, vol. 2. (Oxford: Shan Van Vochr. 1997), pp. 695-707; Curtis, Cause, pp. 175-77; Virginia Crossman,*The and the the Commemoration of Rebellion," 1798 Eighteenth Century Life, Republicanism Warwick Clarendon, Women, 22 (1998), 128-39. 85 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for lustice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman by promoting women's visibility in politics. Numerous nationalist women got their first experience as public activists when they traveled the country on pub lic speaking tours, advocating the United Irishmen's "ideal of an independent Irish republic uniting all its people regardless of their religion." The new half as well as John Mitchel's 1847 penny weekly was named after this movement, Ireland and it circulated nationalists among throughout revolutionary weekly a year, it grew to an eight-page penny weekly, and had in Belfast, Paris, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia.9 London, agents the United Irishman In keeping with the goals of the '98 commemorations, and elsewhere.8 Within supported the absolute independence of Ireland. Editorially, it did not advocate armed revolution, but many of the republican writers published in its pages did. The newspaper aimed, as R.M. Henry observes, "to build up a kind of national might have their say, and to induce a gen eral consensus of opinion in favor of the new policy [of re-establishing the con stitution of 1782]."10The guiding principle of the paper was separatist nation alism, advocating Irish self-reliance and patriotism.11 Even its advertisements forum inwhich all 'real'Nationalists revealed the newspaper's philosophy of economic autonomy: nearly every item featured, from cigarettes to crucifixes, was "guaranteed Irish made," and many advertisements enjoined readers to encourage Irish industry and pride with the power of the purse. The government seized and confiscated twenty-three issues during the first three years of publication, and on three occasions, the United Irishman was publicly suppressed. In 1906, the United Irishman Publishing the paper because of Company, which engaged Griffith as editor, discontinued a libel action. Within months Griffith established another newspaper named after the newly-formed political and cultural organization Sinn F?in. During the span of seven years from 1899 through 1906 the United Irishman was one of the most significant nationalist newspapers in Ireland. F.S.L. Lyons called it "as potent a force as theNation had been for contemporaries of Thomas Davis."12 George A. Lyons recorded in 1923his impression of the paper's marked influence on its readership: "The United Irishman alone amongst the Press of 8. See Richard M. Kain, Dublin in the Age of William Butler Yeats and lames Joyce (Norman: Uni Press, 1962), p. 49. versity of Oklahoma 9. Glandon, p. 18. 10. R. M. Henry, The Evolution 1920), p. 63. of Sinn Fein (New York: Huebsch, 11. The United Irishman also often combined anti-Semitism with Irish-Ireland "Jew Press against Transvaal." 4 February 16October 1900, p. 4).Glandon observes in terms of Irish nationalist nationalism. See 1899, p. 5 and "Gold of the Jew against the Irish Brigade." that "Griffith rationalized the anti-Semitic bias in his early resentment of another race, who, in his against members 'came to Ireland penniless* and were able to secure loans through the Bank of Ireland for the (43). purchase of land and business property, while Irishmen were denied this opportunity" newspapers words, 12. F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (1971; London: Fontana Press, 1985), p. 248. 86 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Gonne Voice for Justice: Maud and the United Irishman Ireland stood out definitely for probity and dignity in public affairs, and pushed forward the campaign which ultimately dislodged the political mountebanks from their strongholds."13 Two series of articles written by Griffith, "The Res urrection of Hungary" and "TheWorking Policy," were reissued as pamphlets; the former was translated into several Indian languages and sold more than 3,000 copies. Gandhi would later state that he found Griffith's proposals valu able when planning nonviolent resistance in India.14 Although the United Irish man was surely not, as nationalist historian Francis Jones claims, one of the most widely of the most Anna read papers in the country,15 itsmodest audience comprised many influential nationalists of the day. John O'Leary, James Connolly, Johnston (Ethna Carbery), Alice Milligan, members of the Gaelic League Brotherhood read and publicly supported the news the relied upon '98 clubs to push its sales, but it gained paper paper.16 Initially, as to a list of notable contributors. W.B. Yeats, J.B. attract it began popularity St. Oliver Yeats, J.M. Synge, John Gogarty, Frank Fay, George Moore, John and the Irish Republican Eglington, Edward Martyn, Eamon Ceannt, Michael Davitt, John O'Leary, James Connolly, Seamus MacManus, Anna Johnston (Ethna Carbery), Alice Milligan, Maud Gonne, Nora Hopper, Jennie Wyse-Power, May Curran, and Mary E.L. Butler contributed poems, plays, and reviews; discussed and devel oped the idea of an Irish theater; and debated nationalist politics. While the newspaper's most important goal was arguing the cause of Irish independence, its columns, editorials, and features revealed an ambitious array of interests and concerns in literature, history, economics, art, and geography. In addition to publishing original literature from many of the leading writers of the day, it avidly supported the Gaelic League, tion, and the Celtic Literary Society. Some cultural ballad history and Irish bardic tales, ran for more paper also republished as a serial Jean D'Arbois de the Gaelic Athletic Associa series, such as those on Irish than twelve months.17 The Jubainville's influential Irish The United Irishman Mythological Cycle.18 regularly reviewed books, including those written by Lady Gregory (Gods and Fighting Men) and C.J. Hamilton (No table Irishwomen).19 Starting in 1902, it contained a regular column on the Irish of Griffith and His Times (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1923), p. 58. in Sean ? L?ing, "Arthur Griffith and Sinn Fein" in Leaders and Men of the Easter Ris 1916, ed. F.X. Martin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 68. 13- Some Recollections 14. Quoted ing:Dublin Francis Jones, History of the Sinn Fein Movement Kenedy and Sons, 1917), p. 179. 16. Glandon, p. 13. 15. 1905; January 1902-January January 1904-February 18. December 1902. 1901-July 19. 18 June 1904, p. 6. 17. and the Irish Rebellion of 1916 (New York: 1903. 87 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman language. Griffith's popular series on Irish topography and placenames, "Ram bles in Erin," also fostered interest in Gaelic culture.20 to the paper,21 the contributed James Connolly occasionally Although United Irishman was hardly progressive in its economic platform. Griffith's focused on the foundation and development of native in as laboratories, and crafts, well as the promotion of com dustries, workshops, merce, to achieve full-scale economic strength. This economic philosophy later economic objectives to complain Jim Larkin, whose militancy Griffith disapproved, prompted as much about politics and economics as he does about Griffith, "He knows about the Irish worker, which is nothing."22 While the newspaper offered little practical advice or theoretical analysis about the working class in Ireland, it re peatedly urged alliances with the dispossessed in other countries of the British Empire. There were regular features and special editorials on the Irish Trans in support of the Boers' battle with Britain, and on the Indian vaal Committee famine. One of the remarkable features of the United Irishman was the extent to which women's writings and women's concerns were featured in its pages. Until histo rianMargaret Ward published her impressive feminist study Unmanageable Rev olutionaries in 1983, few contemporary scholars knew about the political work of the Ladies Land League or the nationalist cultural projects of Inghindhe na h?ireann ("Daughters of Ireland"). A precursor ofWard's feminist recovery pro ject, however, was taking place in the columns of the United Irishman a century the United Irishman was best known as a nationalist-separatist weekly newspaper, it also served as a republican woman's studies primer. Build ing on the "implicit feminism"23 of Alice Milligan's and Anna Johnston's literary ago. Although journal Shan Van Vocht (1896-99), the United Irishman nonetheless lacked the oppositional political stance later taken by the feminist newspaper the Irish Cit izen (1912-^0). Rather, the United Irishman celebrated women's culture in aman ner resembling Ms. magazine inAmerica of the 1980s. The newspaper discussed the literary, historical, and political contributions of nationalist women from the past and present; provided reviews and commentaries about female artists; fea tured poems and plays written by women; included numerous editorials, fea 20. April 1903-July 1905. See also George A. Lyons, p. 49. 21. Connolly published several poems in 1904, and he also contributed national theater 22. Quoted 23. an essay on the merits (24 October in Glandon, 1903, p. 2). p. 100-101. Innes,p.i34. 88 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions of a Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman columns by female journalists; and alerted readers to the na tionalist writings of women featured in other newspapers.24 The example of the United Irishman counters Boland's assertion that femi nism and nationalism form an inherently "unhealthy intersection."25 The pages tures, and weekly of the paper demonstrate how each movement drew strength from the other: feminist, socialist, and nationalist women such as Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Nora Connolly, Barry Delaney, Kathleen Clarke, Alice Milligan, Ella Younge, Ethna Carbery, Mary E.L. Butler, Delia Larkin, and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington wrote frequently and were avidly discussed as equal, autonomous participants in agitation for female suffrage, the rights of labor, as well as in the struggle for Irish national liberation. Two recurring columns focused on female labor: "Irishwomen's Work" and "Irishwomen and the Home Industries."26 a wrote E.L. Butler Mary four-part series on "Womanhood and Nationhood," which promoted the "Nationalisation of the Irish homelife."27 Despite its obvi ous intent to attract previously apolitical women to the cause of Ireland? series namely, "to enlist the aid of the home-maker as a nation-maker"?the some of the limitations of early feminist discourse, as it primar women's contributions within the home. Nonetheless, Butler's ily imagines women rhetorical strategy in reminding that because they "make the home at ... women are the chief nation-builders" resembles the speeches of mosphere other early suffragists, who proclaimed that women's scrupulous housekeeping demonstrates predicted their proficiency in parliament. Other articles in the United Irishman were more forthright in advocating a One weekly feature female activism that was public and independent-minded. women the of the Young described the action and of poetry glowingly political a more Ireland movement, details and century ago literary excerpts offering than the three-volume Field Day Anthology of IrishWriting offered in 1991.28The goals of the newspaper meant that art was submitted populist, propagandists in the pages of the United Irish 24- Some of the literary women who wrote for or were discussed man are Alice MiUigan, Charlotte Grace O'Brien, Fiona MacLeod, Olive Schreiner, Augusta Holmes, Eliza Ethna Carbery, Katherine Tynan, Nora Harper, Kathleen O'Meara, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, beth Robins, Chraoibh?n Helen Sheridan, Some political Parnell, and Anne Devlin. Ely, Anna 25. This famous phrase, Grace Rhys, Rose Kavanaugh, and historical women discussed Sarah Bernhardt, and Jane Barlow. applied to another putatively dangerous confluence, 1903-31 October 1903. Ella Young, ?lis Ni of include Margaret is Conor Cruise O'Brien's. 26. 19November-16 December 1904 and 24 October 3 January 1903-24 January 1903. 28. See The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, ed. Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day Press, 1991), fourth vol. 2, "The Famine and Young Ireland," selections by Seamus Deane. The long-awaited to redressing the exclusion of women writers of Ireland, will perhaps provide volume, dedicated better coverage. 27. 89 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman to political judgement, as D.E.S. Maxwell observes.29 The sustained interest in topics about women, as well as the ubiquity of female writers in its pages, women as strongly suggests that the values of emerging feminism?promoting equal, if sometimes separate, participants in political activism?were to influence the broader nationalist movement. beginning Part of the unusual nature of the focus on women in the pages of the United movement in Ireland had Irishman was that, while the emergent women's achieved important advances in education and economic autonomy, most Irish nationalist organizations of the time barred women from membership. Unlike Britain, where the feminist movement was a visible political force and mobi lized around a host of issues ranging from the campaign against the Contagious suffrage crusades and theworking women's struggle for decent working conditions, Ireland in 1899 had few organizations of women ex Diseases Act tomilitant pressly created in order to fight for the emancipation of the female sex as a whole. Irish feminists initially shared many of the political concerns of their British sisters in their push for theMarried Women's Property Acts and the So cial Purity Crusade, but they began to diverge and develop differently in their campaigns for employment, education, and the vote.30 Likewise, the Boer War (1899?1902) and, especially, World War I encouraged British and Irish feminists increasingly separated according to national allegiance. The promotion of women in the pages of the United Irishman did not, how ever, develop in a vacuum. Cliona Murphy points out that feminist activism in to become Ireland "was prefaced by almost forty years in which early twentieth-century two to three generations of Irish grew accustomed to the idea of women in pub lic life."31As the suffrage movement was slowly gathering pace, a growing num ber of women gained admittance to higher education. By the early 1890s, both Roman Catholic and Protestant middle-class women had access to, though not equal standing in, higher education as a result of the 1878 Intermediate Educa tion Act and the 1879 Royal University Act. Many middle-class women could also claim greater economic autonomy as a result of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870,1874, and 1882. By the turn of the century, women could sit on Poor Law Boards and Local Government Councils, two important op women for full that Irish prepared political participation. portunities Irish feminism's most devoted champions, the suffragists, finally organized into a powerful collective in 1908 when Hanna 29. The Field Day Anthology, 2:562. 30. See Mary Cullen, "How Radical was Irish Feminism and Establishments, ed. Patrick 31. Cliona Murphy, tury (Philadelphia: and Francis Sheehy Skeffington between i860 and 1920?" in Radicals, Rebels, J.Corish The Women's (Belfast Appletree Press, 1985), pp. 185-201. and Irish Society in the Early Twentieth Suffrage Movement Temple University Press, 1989), p. 14. 90 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cen Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman and Margaret and James Cousins founded the IrishWomen's Franchise League. Almost a decade earlier, however, Inghinidhe na h?ireann had begun its cul tural nationalist activism in 1900.32 Initially established to give women a forum activities, the group soon revealed an implicit feminist agenda as well. Evening lectures and such entertainments as tableaux vivants often focused on such powerful, self-reliant women of the past asMaeve, Brigid, Anne Devlin, for nationalist Grania Mhaol, and Sarah Curran. In circulation from 1908 through 1911, its newspaper Bean na h?ireann (Woman of Ireland), made the organization's growing belief in the inseparability of nationalism and feminism even more ex plicit. Its pages often revealed an ongoing debate about prioritizing the demands of these two related but different political causes, asserting the cause of Ireland over the cause of suffrage: "A vote may be the hall-mark of equality, but it is in our daily lives?in matters of education, in commerce, on local administrative boards, and in the labour market, that we need real liberty and equality."33 A later, an editorial in the April, 1909, issue yoked feminism and na tionalism when it demanded "freedom for our nation and the complete removal of all disabilities to our sex." few months The growing acceptance of political women helped to create an environ in which advanced nationalists were receptive to women's equality. The editorship of Arthur Griffith may also have played a part. Although many bi ment ographers suggest that Griffith behaved with shyness and chivalry toward the "fairer sex," he wrote frequently in the United Irishman, as well as in Bean na h?ireann under the under the pseudonym "1er,"34about women as "intellectual in morals, no comrades and helpers in various concerns of public life ... stronger and no weaker in the main than men, and worthy of frank, full confi dence and trust, and of the highest and best education."35 Griffith's promotion of female equality may have been influenced by one particular woman with closely during the years of the United Irishman: Maud Gonne. whom he worked From 1899 to 1901, Griffith collaborated with William Rooney in writing and editing the newspaper. During these years the newspaper provided little cover age of women's was left without activities. When Rooney died suddenly inMay, 1901, Griffith in a political and intellectual venture he had always viewed as collaborative.36 Maud Gonne appears to have in some ways filled the a partner 32. See Ward, "Inghinidhe na h?ireann, 1900-1914" 33. Bean na h?ireann, February 1909, p. 1. 34. Glandon, 35. United in Unmanageable Revolutionaries, pp. 40-87. p. 135. Irishman, 26 January 1901, p. 6. Padraig Colum, Ourselves Alone! The Story of Arthur Griffith State (New York: Crown Publishers, 1959), p. 50. 36. and the Origins of the Irish Free 91 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for lustice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman gap. In the year before Rooney's death, Gonne had spent less time writing and editing her monthly VIrelande Libre in Paris; instead, she was writing occasional editorials for the United Irishman and other nationalist newspapers, as well as serving as a liaison between Griffith and other important nationalists.37 Mar garetWard and Antoinette Quinn both suggest that, during these years, Gonne functioned less as awriter than as a financial supporter of the United Irishman, ensuring that the newspaper publicized her activism and the projects of Inghinidhe na h?ireann.38 Gonne paid Griffith an editorial subven tion of twenty-five shillings a week and her fund-raising in the United States her contributions also helped keep the newspaper afloat during the early years of its publication. It ismore likely that the newspaper's frequent coverage of Gonne reflects not just her financial support but her persistent predilection to unite all of her many projects. In her autobiography, Gonne neatly summarized her phi losophy: "I never willingly discouraged either a Dynamiter or a constitutional ist, a realist or a lyrical writer. My chief preoccupation was how their work could nationalist help forward the Irish Separatist movement."39 As a close friend of Griffith, and one who brought him in contact with nationalists as diverse as Connolly and Yeats, or Milligan and Butler, Gonne may have simply and naturally introduced to an untapped resource vital to the Irish cause?women. After Gonne founded Inghinidhe na h?ireann in the spring of 1900, the United Irishman published rharkedly more articles about Irish history and cul Griffith ture that were implicitly feminist. In part, this was simply because the newspa per devoted extensive space to reporting on gatherings of Inghinidhe na h?ire ann, literary meetings, language classes, and history lectures. After Gonne tour in the spring of 1901, the United Irish in Irish politics, history, and cul 1904,when Gonne became preoccupied with a new baby and a returned from her final American man featured even more articles about women ture. Following failing marriage, however, its pages contained fewer topics and features for its female readers. In fact, one writer in 1905, perhaps reflecting her growing dis satisfaction with the paper's waning interest in women's topics, lobbied the readers of the United Irishman for a women's nationalist paper that would be too not and and solidly written ... [with] fash fully national, brightly "frankly ion articles which I suppose would be its strong point ? indispensable for the 37? See Colum, pp. 50-1,74 and Glandon, p. 177. See 38. Margaret Ward, Maud Gonne: Ireland's Joan of Arc (London: Pandora, 1990), p. 60; and Quinn, "Cathleen ni Houlihan Writes Back: Maud Gonne and Irish National Theater," in Gender and Sexuality inModern Ireland, ed. Anthony Bradley of Massachusetts Press, 1997)? p. 57 University 39. Maud Gerrards Gonne, A Servant of theQueen, Cross: Colin Smythe, and Maryann ed. A. Norman Gialanella Valiulis. (Amherst: Jeffares and Anna MacBride White. 1994), p. 178. 92 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions (1938; Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman capture of the female seoinini."40 Helena Molony, who edited Bean na h?ireann own paper to explained that Inghinidhe na h?ireann decided to produce their ideas" of the United "counteract" the "reactionary social and dual-kingdom Irishman in its final years.41 By the time the United Irishman was resurrected as Sinn F?in in 1906, Griffith's newspaper provided an even narrower scope. The United Irishman's hallmark presentation of diverse ideas from feminism to so cialism was diminishing. Whether or not Gonne was a behind-the-scenes collaborator with Griffith, the United Irishman devoted an extraordinary amount of space to following her nationalist activities and writings.42 The newspaper featured excerpts from Vlre lande Libre, it closely covered Gonne's speeches in Ireland, England, and France; it noted that Gonne presided at such political and cultural organizations as the Celtic Literary Society, the Irish Transvaal Committee, and the Patriotic Chil dren's Treat; it publicized meetings of Inghinidhe na h?ireann; and it often pub It also ran more than thirty of lished entire talks given at these meetings. Gonne's signed editorials and letters.When she rested her voice and picked up her pen, Gonne had an attentive nationalist and editorials in the United Irishman. audience for her frequent letters One common charge against Gonne?notably among Yeats critics?was that she was a political fanatic. If one reads her earliest columns, one can see how this reputation emerged. Her early impulses as a writer were to express anti-English sentiment. Rallying against Irish enlistment in the English army, Gonne detailed the experience of disabled Irish soldiers in the workhouse who were denied government pensions, and declared, "Think of this, Irishmothers, even when there is the hunger in your cabins and things look dark and hope less for the land we love."43A subsequent letter to the editor pointed out the in adequacy of such romanticized expectations when Irishmen's choices "so far as they see, lies between the workhouse, the jail, and the army_If Ireland cannot give them employment what are the poor devils to do?"44 Gonne's early columns also blithely advocated armed rebellion, arguing that formany "the tu such an uprising in of war comes as a refuge from grief." Envisioning mythic terms that echoed the imagery and optimism of '98 commemoration speeches, Gonne conveniently ignored the human dimension of war: "Over Ire mult land the cloud-cloak 40. of theMor Riga will wave once more ?om "A Paper for Irishwomen," 41. Quoted United 42. See Ward, Maud 43. "Rewards of Serving England," United 28 October 1899, p. 3. 44. 8 April 1905, pp. 6-7. (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1935), p. 121. Irishman, in R.M. Fox, Rebel Irishwomen Gonne, her war char pp. 58,61-2. Irishman, 21October 1899, p. 5. 93 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Gonne Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud and the United Irishman iot, and through the smoke, and the fire, and the darkness, generation will come."45 life, light, and re time, the facile rhetoric of her earliest columns waned as Gonne de as a thinker, stylist, and journalist. Her early career as a writer was veloped marked by fervid hatred of England and its symbolic leader, Queen Victoria. to base her Her later columns display a wry wit and an increasing willingness Over on reserved analysis and statistics. In some of her most fa anti-imperialism mous columns, such as "Famine Queen" and "Her Subjects," one can hear the resonance of an electrifying, defiant speech. Emotionally controlled and po litically calculating, Gonne spoke for many when she baldly derided Queen as a woman who, so Gonne implies, had been not only an unjust but also an unwomanly queen. Victoria monarch For Victoria, of her eighty-one in the decrepitude to revisit absence of half-a-century are the victims of the criminal all she must the political famine, organised is a woman, Irish mothers tremble have cursed she hates of her reign, the survivors necessity must have been terribly vile as death shelterless who, ing little ones, the country and whose policy and however sometimes to have decided years, and selfish when approaches under and pitiless the cloudy her before her she thinks Irish an after inhabitants of sixty years strong; soul may of of for after be, she the countless their sky, watching starv they died.46 "Famine Queen" was widely distributed, section of the Dublin police force seized members of the intelligence-gathering all remaining copies from the United Irishman offices.47 In the next issue, Gonne was equally defiant of the spirit, if not the letter, of English law,which prohib Before the edition that contained ited libeling the queen. This column also suggests the extent to which Gonne's speech-making successes were due to her rhetorical skills rather than her stat uesque beauty. Disingenuously promising to refrain from embarrassing the queen, Gonne quickly returned to the topic of British misrule by focusing on "her subjects" rather than on the "Famine Queen": Itwould appear that it is against the English law in Ireland to write about the Famine Queen, the police say so at any rate? Still though I do not pretend to understand that lawwhich grants policemen by hundreds to the landlord who desires to burn down the houses of the starving peasants, and which puts the peasant in jail formonths for burning a little turf cut off the landlord's bog, my reverence of it is sowell known to allmy friends that theywill not be surprised that, hearing it is illegal to write about this Famine Queen, I today only wrote about 4546. her subjects, and humbly hope that Imay "Ireland and Her Foreign Relations," United Irishman, "Famine Queen," United Irishman, 7 April 1900, p. 5. not again 22 December have the misfortune 1900, p. 4. 47. Curtis, p. 181. 94 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Gonne Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud to offend more the richest woman starving whose in the world, creatures of human millions and the United proud than Irishman it is to reign boast any queen in history has over ever done.48 Throughout her journalistic career, Gonne consistently wrote with a sense of urgency and haste. Implicitly, the pace and exigency of her discourse is ex plained in an editorial of 1901,where Gonne compares her journalistic vocation to a nurse's calling: It is not by the side of a dying mother thatwe can stay to turn polished phrases or studied periods. One's mind whole to save her. To save, to cure, on how is fixed it isnecessary to know the extent of the ill, the cause of the ill, and the remedies that have already promptly, been consistently, tried; these facts perseveringly, it is necessary established, for the life we to act, to act the life of our nation, love, the life of our mother is flowing rapidly away.49 This passage exposes more than Gonne's sense of journalistic urgency. Her link age of writing and nursing can also be read as a way that Gonne sought to le gitimate her "unwomanly" work Ireland's freedom. on behalf of in the public sphere, campaigning Gonne increasingly drew upon economic the propagandistic control Britain maintains ined the human toll and financial burdens statistics and offered examples of over its colonies. She also exam as India, Hong the British Empire. In one col to such colonies Kong, and Ireland had shouldered in sustaining umn on the Indian famine, Gonne deftly revealed the pompous, superficial de bate in the House of Commons concerning the famine and concluded, Alas, we in Irelandknow how vain the hope that the people of Great Britain will ever awake to a sense of duty, unless their material is the bugle-call interest The death by starvation of millions of Irish and of Indians have never moved them.Why should it?50 Elsewhere, Gonne asserted that the death rate of Irish soldiers in the English army during the Boer War nakedly exposed the English "policy for the exter mination of the Irish people." Such apparent overstatements, however, were supported by statistics: ... of the enormous send against 21,000 were 48. 49. 50. the Boer Scotchmen, army of 229,500 farmers, men 155,000 were 5,000 were Welshmen; which had England Englishmen, been 16,000 were the rest were obliged Irishmen, Colonials. "Her Subjects," United Irishman, 21 April 1900, p. 3. "Ireland To-Day," United Irishman, 28 September 1901, pp. 2-3. "India," United Irishman, 12May 1900, p. 5. 95 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions In killed, to Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud wounded, and deaths missing the Irishmen and from and Gonne the United the Englishmen disease, Irishman lost 12.7 per cent... cent.51 22.7 per also suggested concrete ways by which her Irish readers could reject British control over their daily lives. One column detailed the im cultivating economic partnerships outside of portance of Irish merchants Gonne's columns her readers that if they wanted freedom, they with Irish Americans, and direct communications to needed foster frequent many of whom relied upon the biased British press for their news about Ire Britain.52 She also reminded land.53 Gonne's writings often addressed the responsibilities and the inherent limitations of the press in Ireland and elsewhere. While, as Gonne noted, "The want of public libraries in most of the country towns and villages of Ireland, advantages, such as are found in free countries, the importance and responsibility of the Press of our country," the mainstream newspapers of the day were hardly objective dispensers of the news, in large part because their relationship to the marketplace strongly determined and the want of educational doubles how issues were framed: Press The is generally the expression of some great money or vested interest; in serving that interest it is sincere, if usually lying, and when dealing with other matters not it expresses his readers ing of our papers, thinks what necessarily anyone thinks, but what the Editor are thinking... It is our duty to carefully watch the advertis and see that no such immoral advertisements [imperialist] find theirway into them.54 Here Gonne offers an understanding of the mass media that anticipates the pro paganda model later famously characterized by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky as "manufacturing consent."55 In "No Second Troy," Yeats memorably "taught to ig violent ways."56 As Gonne spoke out against the effects of British imperialism, she sometimes explicitly alerted readers that "first the river recalled that Gonne norant men most 52. and the English Army," United Irishman 20 October 1900, p. 5. "In the Event of War," United Irishman, 22 December 1900, p. 7. 53. "Ireland and Irish America," 54. "Irish Press" United 51. "Irishmen "vested and interest" were Irishman, 22 lune 1901, p. 5. and Irishman, 7 February 1903, p. 6. Such locutions as "great Money" common code for anti-Semitism, to which Gonne was not immune. In 1890 1891 in France, Gonne Boulanger in support for General George joined her lover Lucien Millevoye a fiercely nationalist, anti-German politician with fascist and anti-Semitic to the left as she aged, she never overcame her strong dis Gonne's ideology moved (1837-1891), leanings. While trust of Jews. 55. United See Edward Herman, Mass Media Noam (New York: Pantheon Chomsky, Books, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy 1988). 56. W. B. Yeats, Collected Poems, ed. Richard J. Finneran (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 91. 96 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions of the Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman of blood must flow" before Ireland would be free.57 Yet, Gonne's invocations of She was enacting what she believed was her pre as woman the role in the prophecy of Brian Ruadh, in which "there war were not mere bloodlust. ordained Would be a famine and that awoman the revolt. After that, men would killed but that the English would dressed in green would come and preach rise and there would be fighting and many in the end be driven out."58 Even before her performance as Cathleen ni Houlihan in the 1902 play, Gonne's lec tures and essays returned repeatedly to her fascination with the symbolic power of awoman leading her men to freedom. Gonne's belief in the old prophecy that memorable Ireland will be saved by awoman legitimated not only her militantism, but also the activism of all Irishwomen doing their part for Ireland. Thus, hoping "to re vive the memories of Irish heroines," Gonne lectured and wrote about such as Brigid and Emer not only because, as she claimed, "the Celts ... have always reverenced the feminine equally with the masculine principle," but also because she sought to enlist all women in the nationalist movement.59 Gonne women further encouraged female participation through promoting women's political in the home. Like Mary E. L. Butler's serial, which accepted the mid dle-class expectations of women as primary inculcators of children's spiritual activism and moral values, Gonne's columns encouraged Irish mothers to teach their children nationalist politics: to "know as well as love Ireland ... her history, her language and her literature" in order "to serve [Ireland] intelligently."60 Gonne's editorials, along with the columns and features of the United Irish man, suggest the extent to which the press served in the campaign against im perialism. A number of recent critics have made a convincing case for the liter ary relevance of the press as well. Laurel Brake notes that, despite the efforts of such Victorian critics asMatthew Arnold who divided culture into high and low writers were active contributors, editors, and almost all Victorian categories, even proprietors of the press.61 The list of contributors to the United Irishman, shows that the same was true across the Irish Sea. Maria DiBattista further ob serves that even such "high" literary writers as Joseph Conrad and Virginia regarded such "low" cultural forms as the popular press as "an inalien able part of modern life, hence unavoidable subject matter whose forms as well Woolf as content might be assimilated or reworked, playfully imitated or seriously crit 57- "Ireland and Irish America 58. Servant, pp. 252-3. "Emer," United Irishman, 59. vember 60. " United 1November Irishman, 22 June 1901, p. 5. 1902, p. 3; "The Goddess Brigid" United Irishman, 3 No in theNineteenth Cen 1900, p. 3. "Ireland and Her Children," United Irishman, 61. 7 June 1902, p. 3. Laurel Brake, Subjugated Knowledges: Journalism, Gender and Literature tury (New York: New York University Press, 1994), p. xii. 97 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her and Gonne Voice for Justice: Maud the United Irishman icized, in their own art."62 Journalism in fin de si?cle Ireland, moreover, proved a valuable forum for both literary and political women, as C. L. Innes has shown. Women, excluded from the vote and from mainstream nationalist and cultural organizations, could attract an audience for their poems and plays, as well as have a voice in public debates about Ireland, if they wrote for the popu lar press.63 The United Irishman frequently juxtaposed feminist history and nationalist politics with popular poems and plays of the Celtic Revival, and so the news paper provides a unique context for examining Eavan Boland's claim that "con ventional reflexes and reflexive feminizations of the national experience" are necessarily debilitating in the Irish literary tradition.64 A poem written in trib as well as Gonne's play Dawn?both of which first appeared in the pages of the United Irishman?may illuminate this debate. When Gonne and Major John MacBride were in the United States in 1901, lecturing to secure support for the Irish cause, the newspaper devoted at least one page each week ute to Gonne, tour. Upon Gonne's return, the newspaper printed an titled "Maud Gonne," which celebrates Gonne's work as one anonymous poem "Who raises up her voice against the wrongs / Of the fair land where first her to their twelve-week sires saw light."65 Notably, this poem singled out for honor the specific attribute that Yeats's later lyrics repeatedly rebuked?her voice.66 In fact, the poem's opening mood is argumentative, rebutting prevailing social expectations that women should be weak and silent: "Say not that woman's voice is ever weak, / That 'tis not hers to nerve the patriot's arm...." The poem shifts to a series of descriptions that trace awell-publicized aspect of Gonne's biography, how she "burst the bonds of kindred and of home" to join the Irish cause: She made herself a aside Pariah:?flung The trammels forged by fashion and by caste Reared up in luxury 'mid a heartless throng, to look down Taught Who eat bread She soon And 62. High and Low Moderns: Diarmid (New York: Oxford 63. CL 64. gained forsook teachings on those who in suffering the teachings of the class groan and and toil. in woe, of her youth that nurtured Literature and Culture, University Press, 1996), pp. 4-5. her. 1889-1939, ed. Maria DiBattista and Lucy Mc Innes, p. 128. Boland, 65. United p. 91. Irishman, 8 June 1901, p. 6. 66. See, for example, Yeats's "Prayer for my Daughter," "Easter 1916," and On the Boiler (1938), where the speaker repeatedly laments women who trade their "natural" pleasantness for "unnatural" po litical opinions. 98 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman the poet associates the of Gonne's upper-class upbringing with the significantly gendered subjugation more urgent class and national oppression suffered by the "sons of misery." Yet, Recounting the "trammels" and "bonds" of servitude, this passage reveals a striking departure from the routine descriptions of the na tionalized feminine object in Celtic Twilight verse. Rather than celebrate Gonne routinely described as her Gonne's looks or her fine clothes?which "passport" in difficult situations,67 the speaker of this poem sees little merit in Gonne's finery or her natural beauty. This speaker is hardly the male patriot of Irish ballads whose sexual longings are sublimated into desires for national freedom. The speaker celebrates not only Gonne's fight for human rights in Ireland, but also her consistent struggle for the dispossessed in other colonial countries: from "the stubborn heroes of Transvaal" to those suffering "death and famine in the Hindoos' land."The poem, however, also records the implicit cultural lim itations of women's activism in early twentieth-century Ireland. Unable to en vision military women, the speaker can only speculate about Gonne's heroism, as her gender prevents her from participating in armed insurgency: Were Her Have she a man shoulder her hand would a rifle and bear one more Irish soldier a sword wield the Boers in their ranks. Moreover, while the poem praises Gonne's eloquence, and even mimics the hall the speaker undercuts her use of repetition? mark of her fiery speeches? Gonne's and, implicitly all feminized, activities by asserting that speeches, trea tises, and tears are futile if they do not lead to masculine military action: All in vain The patriots tongue pours forth its noble thoughts In vain the words In vain the tears When forced There's Save Or no traced by the patriot's th' expatriate to seek another salvation in the rifle's home for a suffering sharp in the home-thrust pen; shed and deadly of the hard or die. land crack, blue steel. Sharing Gonne's thesis that nationalists have little time for "polished phrases or studied periods," the United Irishman's anonymous poet here privileges the imperative of male military action over the contributions of female and femi nized rhetoric. As the poem closes, we glimpse one important reason for the speaker's ambivalence toward Gonne's voice: her outspoken work has generated 67. Servant, p. 109. 99 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud and Gonne the United Irishman controversy. In response, the speaker offers not an apology but a curse: "Of those who slander and who hate her now, / Shall be as loathsome as their bodies dust." The poems shares the promise, but reverses the tactic, of Cathleen ni Houlihan, who prophesied that Irish patriots ... shall be remembered for ever They shall be alive for ever They shall be speaking for ever The people shall hear them for ever68 In its final rhetorical act, the poem in praise of Gonne speech to heap abuse on the opposition, to inspire men memorate moments of national importance. returns to the power of to act, and also to com Several years earlier, in 1896, the literary magazine Shan Van Vocht featured a similar poem in tribute toMaud Gonne. Written byM. Barry Delaney, the as sociate editor of Gonne's VIrelande Libre; the poem similarly celebrates Gonne's commitment by highlighting her powerful voice. The speaker in De in fact, equates "the spell of her young voice alone" with the hero poem, laney's ism of Joan of Arc andWolf Tone. Innes has aptly judged this poem as?like the political United Irishman hymn?a banal example of Celtic TWilight verse.69 Both De and that in the United Irishman do indeed serve as inelegant ad laney's poem for Gonne's activism and corroborate Yeats's declaration in "To Ireland in the Coming Times" that "my rhymes more than their rhyming tell."70 Both poems reveal the extent to which Gonne was closely identified with, and praised for, her voice. The celebration of a woman's voice is particularly important here. Popular vertisements culture of the day commonly associated shrill voices with suffrage agitation.71 Political women were negatively depicted by means of their voice. JaneMarcus observes that women of the era were raised to be "she who may be interrupted." For many women, merely speaking out was in itself a radical act. As suffragettes perfected Christabel Pankhurst's fine art of disrupting political swagger, Mar cus notes they learned that "the interruption of male discourse" was "the real key to the genius of militant suffrage in giving the women of England a political voice."72 For women in Catholic Ireland, speaking out was doubly transgressive for itmeant dismissing a female's most important model, the Virgin Mary. Post famine Irish culture was infused with a devotional revolution: the number of priests and nuns went up dramatically, and there was a marked increase in shrines dedicated toMary. In the nineteenth century's most striking manifes 68. W. B. Yeats, Collected 69. 70. Collected 71. Plays (London: Macmillan, and Nation, p. 137. Innes, Woman Poems, p. so. See Jane Marcus, 72. Marcus, 1952), p. 56. Suffrage and the Pankhursts italics. (New York: Routledge, 1987), p. 1. p. 9. Marcus's 100 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman tation of Mariolatry, the apparition at Knock in 1879,Mary's presence was ex in plicitly defined by her silence. Marina Warner observes that her muteness, to came all Irishwomen.73 fact, embody ideal femininity for In light of cultural and religious conventions of the day, poetic praise for Maud Gonne's outspoken role as a vocal nationalist was striking. Gonne had, in fact, a theatrically trained voice,74 and while she never made a living on the stages of London, she used her voice publicly to lecture, rally crowds, and edu cate the masses. She also took up her pen to write a play about the power of a voice. Her only dramatic creation, Dawn, which today might be called about British brutality and irresponsibility in the famine years, was first published in the United Irishman in 1904.75When Gonne's play was re woman's a docudrama published in The Lost Plays of the Irish Renaissance (1970), the editors Robert Hogan and James Kilroy introduced the play by way of apology. Stressing the and Kilroy dismissed its literary mer play's single strength?emotion?Hogan " its because of its "imitative" and "propagand[istic] qualities.76 At first glance, the play seems to mimic Cathleen ni Houlihan, in which two the lead earlier. ni the Like Cathleen Gonne performed Houlihan, years drama centers on a symbolic female named Bride, who combines the impov erished despair Gonne witnessed among the dispossessed native Irish with the persistent hope and defiant pride that she sought to instill in them. Like Cath leen, Bride's energies are focused on ridding her land of the "Stranger." In Dawn, awakening from a hunger-induced faiting spell, Bride's old friend tells her: Michael Bride, Bride of the Sorrows, it is your service I took, I have been faithful. I thought when too one time Imight have been to Freedom?when you walked one of you will the stones drive your foot would the Stranger out?but rest on I am little a stone. 73- Marina Warner, "What the Virgin of Knock Means 39. For another perspective on the language-silence and Irish Cinema," Silence: Anne Devlin, Women " 1979), p. Magill (September, see Luke Gibbons, "The Politics of toWomen dichotomy, in Transformations in Irish Culture (Cork: Cork Press, 1996). University 74. In A Servant of theQueen, Gonne explains that after her fathers death, she and her cousin May made plans to become nurses "to escape from the family," notably, her overbearing uncle William. Gonne was denied training because her lungs were too weak, so she decided to go on the stage. Just before her first performance, however, she came down ilywas only too glad to get her out of her contract. sick with a lung hemorrhage, and her fam fourth vol 1904, pp. 4-5. The play will be reprinted in the forthcoming 75. Published 29 October ume of the The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. 76. Lost Plays of the Irish Renaissance, ed. Robert Hogan, Thomas Kilroy (Newark, DE: Proscenium Press, 1970), p. 16. 101 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman Bride's daughter Brideen despairs about hunger and the prospect of Bride echoes Gonne's earliest columns in the United Irishman When the workhouse, when she declares: "Daughter of mine, take courage, the night is coming on, and it is very dark, but the day will dawn, and little Eoin will laugh in the dawn and the sunlight because you did not leave the country?because you have been faithful tome."77 As the plot unfolds we learn that though revolution glows on the horizon, Brideen's obedience to Bride will cost her her life. the mythic Cathleen ni Houlihan, which Yeats set in the iconic year is set in recent history, during the Land Wars, in order to highlight Dawn 1798, the way political liberation movements were punished by British injustice and cruelty in the form of evictions and relief works. In Cathleen ni Houlihan, do Unlike disruption ensues when Michael Gillane forgets his betrothed and for feits the comfort assured by Delia's dowry of a "whole hundred pounds" for the mestic lure of Cathleen's romantic talk of nationalist lovers "who will be remembered for ever."Gonne's play advocates revolution for less idealistic and more mater ial reasons?human survival in the face of mass suffering and genocide. Al though the play employs a dramatic realism that anticipates what would be come the prevailing bent of the Irish National Theatre, Dawnys dramatic method was more a synthesis of documentary realism with Victorian melo drama. Gonne a small cast of flat characters who symbolize either or evil?the The machinations of plot are peasants, Stranger. goodness?the calculated to remind the audience graphically of the reasons behind the physi presents Gonne's combination of realism and melodrama, more in later Abbey plays such as T. C. Murray's 1924 Autumn realized successfully was not Fire, shaped only by the two most popular theatrical approaches of the day but also by Gonne's speech-making style. As an orator, she routinely juxta cal force movement. posed lantern slides that documented evictions in famine-ravaged Mayo in 1898 with heated attacks the injustice of evictions, the wrongs of the relief works, and the barbarity of the battering ram. Her play vividly, if sensationally, presents the human price of such British policies of teaching the Irish "a lesson." Antoinette Quinn has argued that Dawn is best understood as a theatrical response to In the Shadow of the Glen, J.M. Synge's realist dramatization of mar ital unhappiness in rural Ireland, rather than as an imitation of Cathleen ni Houlihan.1* Gonne famously walked out on the premiere of Synge's play, re marking in her newspaper article that the play's representation of peasant mar riage was incompatible with a theater supposedly dedicated TJ. Maud Gonne, "Dawn 78. Quinn, "Cathleen 79. United Irishman, " in Losr Plays of the Irish Renaissance, Writes Back," p. 51. to national pride.79 pp. 76-77. ni Houlihan 24 October 1903, p. 3. 102 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman Quinn observes that Gonne's reply to Synge was to write a play "combining re alism with nationalist political allegory in a play focusing on a peasant heroine."80 Gonne presents us with two characters? Bride and her daughter Brideen? who visibly resist the feminist action of Synge's Nora; they will never leave the home, even when it is destroyed by the battering ram. Yet, if one understands Gonne's allegory as related to the dramatic project of the tableaux vivants of Inghinidhe na h?ireann that presented strong, defiant female models of national resistance, Bride and Brideen are less antifeminist they are than anti-British. Forced to work on the roads, Bride angers the Stranger by remaining on her land, "wanderfing] round the fields that was hers "81Brideen, who "has the look of death on her" at the outset of the play, searches for her son Eoin and perpetually hopes to hear from her emigrant husband, thus reminding her audience of the domestic dis order that has resulted from British misrule in Ireland. As the play opens at sunset, we encounter two men working on the famine relief works who factually relate the physical toll of nineteenth-century British social programs. Neil Durkan observes to his mate Mike O'Hara that "it's a long, hard road" on the famine road: "two hours to Clovagher, and then nine hours on theworks, and the hunger on us all the while, and only to get this, for all the hardship, fi* pence worth of Indian meal for a day's wage."82 When we first glimpse the Stranger in the second tableau, he reveals the trickery and cruelties in the Irish imagination. After re that have guaranteed him a hated memory not sent back money from Amer Brideen that her had husband, Eoin, minding ica as promised, the Stranger?sounding tation owners in nineteenth-century use her maternal like the morally corrupt white plan to American slave narratives?attempts instincts to get her into his lecherous clutches: You had better takemy offer and go up tomy farm.There is food and good shel terwaiting for you, and you may take the child with you if you like. It is cruelty out him leaving leave your child in the cold shelterless, this bitter a night night. You like this. There have not a mother's are not many who to heart would do for you asmuch as I am ready to dp, in spite of all the hard things you and your have people daughter said of me. for my But I like you, Brideen, and I have a fancy to have Bride's servant.83 Brideen refuses, and that evening she quietly dies of starvation. Brideen's death becomes the catalyst for the peasant revolt that concludes the play, but her passing is not passive. The scene with the Stranger suggests that her deci 80. Quinn, 81. Dawn, p. 51. p. 74. 82. Dawn, p. 7$. 83. Down, p. 78. 103 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United sion to resist the Stranger's accommodation?like strikers' refusal of Thatcher's prison fare?was Irishman the twentieth-century hunger politically motivated action. As Bride watches her daughter's death approaching, she envisions Brideen as part of amilitant atmosphere that will drive away the cold, obscuring British pres ence in the land: see the dawn See, Brideen, but there on is freedom is coming, the other the red dawn. side of it, and The must flow, are driven away river of blood the Strangers like clouds before the sun. Brideen, it isyou and themighty dead who are dri / ving back the clouds.84 In the final tableau, Brideen's death causes the people to awaken from their star vation and passivity to fight the Stranger. As the orphaned Eoin puts apple blos soms in Brideen's hands, Bride sings a lament that is also a defiant battle cry: It is dark the land is, and it'sdarkmy heart is, the red sun But O the red sun And it's glad rises, when rises, and is come, the hour-heart the dead rise, I can see them they are and proud_ They have bright swords with them that clash the battle welcome A welcome to the red sun that rises with our luck.85 Repeating her vision of a new dawn?a frequent expression of optimism writers of the nationalist among day86?Bride's speech also revises the symbolic the of from redness, power cartographic emblem of the British empire to the for Irish revolution. metonymy Although Mike realizes that "Now the dead are speaking to us, they cry for vengeance," it takes the words of little Eoin to di rect the people's grief. Defiantly resisting the offer of adoptive parents and a standing home, he clings to Bride and replies: "No. Iwill not leave her. Iwill stay and fight for her." The play then closes with a macabre scene in which near starving neighbors join together to fight for Bride and their land, while Bride repeats her fighting song: "They have bright swords with them that clash the battle welcome, /A welcome to the red sun, that rises with our luck."87 is not a lyrical, complex, or intricately plotted play; but in its vision and its details, it is amore feminist play than its few readers have granted. Quinn, for example, laments that despite itswomen-centered focus, Dawn evinces the "strains between nationalism and feminism" because Gonne resorts to tradi Dawn tional, patriarchal models 84. Dawn, 88. Quinn, women suffer and men act.88 Although p. 74. 85. Dawi,p.82. 86. Crossman, 87. Dawn, whereby p. 130. pp. 83-4. pp. 54-5. 104 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Raising Her Voice for Justice: Maud Gonne and the United Irishman Bride inspires rebellion while the remaining men are expected to do the fight ing. The revolution would never occur if not for the potency of her voice. Bride, is not a devouring lover who uses men to get back her good looks moreover, and her four green fields. Bride's purpose for urging an uprising is practical? if the men do not fight, they will perish. Bride's language ismodeled on such realistic pragmatism. Her words are idealistic but grounded in the lived expe rience of extreme poverty, something Gonne saw repeatedly as she traveled Ireland. Quinn also regrets that Gonne's play reverses her personal as a tireless canvasser for Irish liberty. Unlike the sharp-shooters experiences Constance Markievicz and Margaret Skinnider, Gonne never took up arms her self, rather she picked up her pen and raised her stirring voice instead. The play's throughout original context, in the pages of the United Irishman, suggests that both Gonne and her nationalist audience understood that nationalist ventures included ? rhetoric as well as action. In its focus on the revolutionary indeed, required? power of a woman's voice, Gonne's exemplary life. then, Dawn emulated o^ rather than contradicted TEXAS CHRISTIAN 105 This content downloaded from 138.237.48.248 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:01:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions UNIVERSITY