‘It is to be assumed that members of C. na m Ban cannot be kept out of such a body!’: women, Irish republicanism, and prisoner support work 1939–45
Published in Women's History Review, 2025.
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Abstract
The historical consensus on Cumann na mBan, Ireland’s republican women’s organisation, suggests that by the period of the Second World War (or Emergency as it was known in independent Ireland) it was largely inactive. This article explores the organisation’s activity in this period, framing it as part of the group's post-revolutionary afterlife. Through consideration of Cumann na mBan's records, state records from the Department of Justice and newspaper material this article considers the work of Cumann na mBan and other republican women in support of prisoners and their dependents. This article also discusses how existing republican feminist networks, forged during Ireland's revolution, remained central to this prisoner support work throughout the Second World War. It considers how republican women had agency and ownership of a significant area of republican activism through welfare work. It also discusses how Cumann na mBan's status as an auxiliary to the IRA was contentious from its foundation and remained so throughout this period.