Who were "The Men of the West"? Folk historiographies and the reconstruction of Democratic histories

Who Were the Women of the West?

By and large, academic historiography neglected the study of women's involvement in the Rebellion of 1798 and, with the exception of Helen Concannon's pioneering work, has only recently begun researching this field in earnest (Concannon 1920; Keogh et al. 1998). Official historical narratives offer little information on the participation and involvement of women in the Connacht Rising, and therefore folklore sources relating to women in "The Year of the French" have a unique value. Any attempt to use folklore sources for researching the history of women in 1798 must take into account dominant male trends in the Irish folklore-collecting project. The leading members of the Commission, who presided over the fieldwork, were all men and no full-time female collectors were employed, although there were several part-time and specially assigned women collectors. Of the sources relevant to 1798 in the West in the Main Manuscript Collection of the Commission, over 85 per cent were written down by male collectors. In the Schools' Scheme, the local co-ordinators of folklore collecting were individual National School teachers, both male and female, who opted to participate in the project. It so happened that most of the teachers who supervised the documentation of relevant '98 material from the West were male. However, among the pupils who collected the relevant folklore sources, boys and girls were more or less equally represented.

Although, as a rule, folklore collectors approached informants of both sexes, many more men than women were interviewed in the context of folklore pertaining to "The Year of the French" (over 80 per cent in both manuscript collections of the Commission). [11] Perhaps this reflects a tendency to acknowledge more public forms of folk performance in terms of storytellers who were locally known for their talents of entertaining their neighbours with their repertoire of folklore. Due to traditional social structures this theatre probably had a more significant male presence, whereas women may well have played a more dominant role in domestic and private forms of history-telling within the family (Delargy 1945, 181). There may also have been specifically female forums of exchanging stories in intimate environments, which were perhaps less accessible to folklore collectors (O Cathain 1991, 152-3). Gender dynamics, as dictated by traditional social customs of hospitality, most probably played a role in the process of folklore collecting, and often wives were more soft-spoken in the presence of their husbands, who usually dominated the discussions with the visiting collector. Apparently, recognised elderly women storytellers (often widows) enjoyed more independence (O Tuathail 1935).

Further scrutiny reveals that, in many cases, male storytellers cited a female relative (usually a grandmother) as the original source of information. This observation calls attention to the crucial role of women in the chain of transmission of historical tradition. It also indicates that narratives originating from women were often recalled later and retold by male descendants. Analysis of such narratives facilitates the rediscovery of original female voices from the past. Family tradition not only rescued the experience of many women from oblivion, but also demonstrated how grandmothers were valued storytellers in domestic life and bequeathed to their grandchildren vivid descriptions of their remembered experiences of 1798.