Republican responses toward the Armagh protests were complicated and varied in their support for the women. Within the Republican tradition is deeply embedded the age-old idea of “Mother Ireland,” the fictitious symbolic woman who must occupy the domestic sphere or inspire her men to fight for their country to the death. Because of the prevalence of this tradition in Republican ideology, women were expected to play the role and if they strayed from it, were looked down upon. One republican woman describes the mentality:
“… it all boils down to this romantic “Mother Ireland” image. They like to depict Irish women as very staunch and behind their men…but only strong in so far as they’re ultimately supported by men. Not that they can support themselves, make decisions for themselves to have an affair or an “illegitimate” baby, get divorced, or decide to be a lesbian. These things don’t accord with what the pure image of an Irish woman is” (Weinstein, 21-2).
This ideology doesn’t leave room for real women to exist, and subsequently women are turned into symbols within this culture. Republican women existed as symbols in the eyes of their male counterparts up until the dirty protest shattered that image. The smeared menstrual blood on the walls of women’s cells is the antithesis to Mother Ireland, and casts the idea of “woman as nation” in a vastly different light. Though the IRA regarded the women’s participation in the dirty protest as a “step too far,” they ultimately needed to support their women publicly or risk fracturing (Weinstein, 21). This support for the women in both the dirty protest and the hunger strike was vastly gendered, and served merely to try to contextualize the protests within their traditional republican framework. One source noted the differences in media portrayal:
“The H-Block prisoners were portrayed as strong men with high morale-exhibiting a need to keep up the spirits of republican supporters. Republican News observed: ‘The men are possessed by a quiet confidence that what they are doing is right and eventually they will win. There can be little doubt that the morale of the screws will break before the morale of the blanket men.’ On the other hand, the republican media portrayed the protesting women as having been forced into the no-wash protest after they had been beaten by male warders and subsequently denied access to toilet and washing facilities. Rather than discussing their ‘unique and original’ offensive, the republican papers were filled with headlines like ‘Armagh women attacked,’ ‘Armagh beatings,’ and ‘Men squads beat women prisoners’” (22-3).
This rhetoric reinforces the oppressive Republican ideology towards women and reads their actions as something other than what they are. Not all republican reactions were the same, however. Some republican men, especially those protesting in Long Kesh, supported the women as comrades, and had an incredibly positive changed view about women following their time in prison. One man recounts this transition:
“We learnt to appreciate and even pay tribute to women’s participation in and contribution to the struggle. It took us much longer, however, to begin to critically examine our own roles and privileges as men, let alone the gendered division of power and labour in society, as well as in the republican movement. Our respect of women’s political involvement grew out of the contacts we had with our imprisoned female comrades in Armagh Prison. They suffered particularly harsh conditions within the prison because of their actions. In terms of the prison regime they were deemed doubly guilty – not only had they broken the laws of the state but they had also gone against their feminine gender roles as deemed by society” (Sharoni, 113).
These positive changes in ideology led to further positive social change within the IRA and even more so, Sinn Fein, whose policies were adapted to include women as equally as men, and was overall more progressive in their attitudes towards women than most organizations in Northern Ireland in the time following the hunger strikes.
Catholic Responses Republican Responses Feminist Responses