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Mary MacSwiney
by Leeann Lane
€ 30.00
ISBN: 9781739086381
Until now, in-depth analysis of key female figures in Irish republicanism
in the early twentieth century has been limited. Mary MacSwiney was one of the
most single-minded anti-Treaty women, leading Eamon de Valera to describe her
as 'incorrigible'. Rather than just dismiss MacSwiney as one-dimensional in her
opposition to the Treaty and in her continued political intractability, this
biography seeks to place her political life within the centre of the turn of
the twentieth-century republican narrative and understand why she was
increasingly viewed as a virago.
To say
contemporary gender roles played a part in reducing MacSwiney to a cipher for
extreme republicanism limits a fuller understanding of her political life. Her
uncompromising stance against the evils of compromise during the Treaty
negotiations was indelibly formed by the experience of watching her brother
Terence MacSwiney die on hunger strike in Brixton Jail in 1920, and the trauma
she experienced. She witnessed an intimate act of self-sacrifice which bound
her to a belief that her task was to continue her brother's fidelity to a
separatist republic. Betrayal of the republic, for her, would meant betrayal of
a brother she loved and admired.
Mary MacSwiney situates this
standout figure in the context of her tightly knit family, tracing her
political evolution from suffrage and cultural revival activism to advanced
nationalism. While the focus of MacSwiney's political action was Cork, from
1920 onwards she began to assume a progressively more important role in Irish
politics at a national and international level, including American tours, a
central role during the Civil War and within Sinn Fein and a close political
relationship with de Valera. From 1926 onward, she was increasingly politically
isolated and marginalised as she sparred with members of Fianna Fail in the press,
seeking to justify her continued refusal to engage with the reality of the Irish
Free State.
Leading biographer of women in twentieth-century
Irish history, Leeann Lane delves into newly discovered archival material to
interrogate MacSwiney's oppositional stance to the establishment of the Irish
Free State in 1922. Mary MacSwiney offers a comprehensive understanding
of a misrepresented and marginalised voice in early twentieth-century Irish
politics.
250 pages.
In Stock.
Usually despatched in 2-5 working days.
Date of Publication: 01/04/2025
Trade Paperback
