The presence of women on the killing fields of 1798 was scrubbed from history because of a deep-seated disquiet evoked by the image of "mothers, wives and sweethearts" waging war alongside their men, the Parnell Summer School has been told. In a symposium entitled "Women and the Republic: the Women of '98" it was contended that, in the aftermath of the rising, the role of female insurgents was sanitised into a wholesome account of brave wives selflessly waving their husbands off to war even though many woman fought and died during the revolt.
Dr Daire Keogh, of St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, said the revolutionary politics of liberalism and enlightenment propagated by the American and French revolutions which fuelled the United Irishmen's uprising did not extend to equality between the sexes. A woman's place was not on the battleground but in the kitchen, field and nursery.
Women were regarded as either "madonna or muse"; any straying beyond their assigned roles risked them being derided as little better than prostitutes, he said.
"Those who fought were seen as abandoning their feminine nature. Society was embarrassed by the image of women fighting, sweating, swearing and killing. This was incompatible with the notion of the woman as the carer and comforter," Dr Keogh said. However, despite their exclusion from most accounts of the United Irishmen's revolt a significant number of women were present at the major battles of 1798, he said. This inability to countenance women taking part in armed conflict was demonstrated by the subsequent reluctance of the Crown to punish those who did fight in the uprising. No woman was executed or banished after the rebellion, and only two were tried by court-martial, Dr Keogh said.
The portrayal of independent and outspoken women as distasteful aberrations had been perpetuated into the Victorian era and continued to hold sway into the 20th century and the War of Independence, he said.
"In the accounts of the rising later utilised by nationalists, women are seen to conform to the expectations of Catholic nationalism. They were shown as playing a supporting role, that of mother, wife and sweetheart."
A local historian, Ms Anna Kinsella, said that at the end of the 18th century Irish women were expected to encourage men to march to war while stoically accepting their place as comforter.
In an earlier presentation it was said that claims that the nascent Wexford republic of 1798 established an American-style assembly of 500 members were highly dubious.
Dr Ruan O'Donnell, of St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, said that while the county was ably administered during its short-lived independence assertions made earlier this year that a republican senate was constituted by the rebels did not sit easily with the majority of first-hand accounts from the period.