Women in the Irish nationalist movement 1900-1916
From Workers' Liberty 56, June/July 1999 Constance Markievicz and the other women who fought in the Easter Rising struggled to be accepted on equal terms by the Irish labour movement and among nationalists. Their experience holds many lessons for today's socialists and feminists. English rule in Ireland was established in the early 17th century. A feature of this rule soon became the persecution of the native Catholic population. A Catholic revolt in 1641 was followed eight years later by Cromwell's re-conquest of Ireland, in which Catholics were forcefully driven off their land. This was...