In her preface to Irish feminism and the vote: an anthology of the Irish Citizen newspaper 1912–1920, Margaret Ward questioned why academic historians neglected the suffrage movement in Ireland. This situation has improved somewhat over the last two decades, undoubtedly because of precisely this kind of publication. Folens educational publishers produced the anthology by Louise Ryan in 1996. The original publication resembled a textbook with ‘Third Level’ stamped on its plain cover. However, the content revealed something unique. This book grew from Ryan’s Ph.D. research and it resulted in a ground-breaking contribution to Irish women’s history, introducing readers to the then little known pages of the Irish Citizen, a newspaper which Ward describes as ‘the voice of Irish feminism during some of the most important years in the Irish historical experience’.

In celebration of the centenary of votes for women, the anthology has been republished in 2018 under the catchier title of Winning the vote for women: the Irish Citizen newspaper and the suffrage movement in Ireland. Four Courts Press have produced an attractive book with Margaret ‘Meg’ Connery pictured on the cover proudly displaying an advertising board for the Irish Citizen during a protest to politicians, including the Ulster Unionist Party leader Edward Carson, in 1912. The main text of the volume has kept to the original 1996 edition but this volume now includes a number of such images wonderfully animating this feminist history.

As the title indicates, the volume focuses on a key instrument of the Irish suffrage movement, the Irish Citizen newspaper, founded in 1912. The paper was the organ of the Irish Women’s Franchise League (I.W.F.L.), a vibrant suffrage organisation established by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins, supported by their husbands, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and James Cousins. By 1912, the cause of votes for women had become a key issue within the Irish home rule debate. The Parliamentary Franchise (Women) Bill was reintroduced to the House of Commons in February 1912. The leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond, refused to support the bill and this was met with increased activity from suffragists around the country. The Irish Party was immersed in the campaign to achieve home rule. Irish feminists demanded that female suffrage be included in the terms of any home rule bill sought and as Ryan attests, as a result ‘the period 1912–14 can be described as the heyday of Irish suffragism’. In the midst of such increased suffrage action, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and James Cousins resolved to establish a paper to reflect the thoughts, ideas and actions of the I.W.F.L.

Francis, a professional journalist, wrote editorials and articles on politics and female suffrage and James focused on general topics. The content was impressive, including articles, editorials, advertisements, news of activities and reports submitted by suffrage organisations from across the island of Ireland. After one month in print the men claimed to have achieved a circulation of 3,000 with an estimated readership of 10,000. The weekly paper sold for one penny or for an annual subscription of 6s. 6d. The campaign to achieve votes for women was central in the pages of the Irish Citizen. However, the editors ensured that they dealt with the complexity of the Irish suffrage situation. The editorship changed over its eight years, Hanna took over her husband’s position for a time after his murder in 1916. The paper included discerning articles examining how votes for women was connected to issues such as home rule, the First Word War and the ongoing campaign for Irish independence. The content of the journal in this regard now provides historians with a valuable record of the multifaceted debates regarding the place of women in Irish nationalist developments.

Ryan’s volume is an invaluable record of this vital paper. This new publication includes an updated foreword, again by Margaret Ward. A revised introduction by Ryan and the main body is divided into five sections; feminism and the vote; women, morality and the law; feminism, pacifism and the war; women, work and class; feminism and Irish politics. Each section includes an insightful introduction by Ryan followed by extracts from the pages of the Irish Citizen. Readers are provided with a distinctive insight into feminist concerns of the time, by no means restricted to the campaign for votes for women. For example, the section on ‘women, morality and the law,’ includes articles on pertinent issues such as ‘wife-beating.’ In 1919, the Ulster feminist and author of The feminine in fiction, L.A.M. Priestly-McCracken, highlighted the legal inequalities that women subjected to their husband’s violence must also endure. Priestly observed:

Ultimately, initiatives in 2018 to commemorate the centenary of the vote for women in Ireland, most notably Vótáil 100 by the Houses of the Oireachtas, have produced numerous valuable outcomes promoting Irish women’s history; re-publication of this book is certainly one such positive outcome. After the original publication of the Irish Citizen volume in 1996 Margaret Ward and Louise Ryan galvanised the work of Irish historians to compile a volume of essays, Irish women and the vote: becoming citizens, in 2007; that volume has also been republished in 2018. Republication of such works are sure to inspire and arm another wave of feminist historians to delve even further into our Irish feminist past.