Content area
Full text
Gender Perspectives in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Public and Private Spheres, edited by Margaret Kelleher and James H. Murphy; pp. 238. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1997, 32.00.
As long ago as May 1991, David Fitzpatrick in a review article published in Irish Historical Studies asserted: "There is no explanation in history which might not require qualification and reformulation in terms of gender* (273). In the same journal, exactly one year after Fitzpatrick's magisterial pronouncement, Margaret MacCurtain and Mary O'Dowd followed it up with a strong cry for more women's history. At one stage in their article, they also pointed out the necessity of writing "men's history. . . from a gender point of view" (3). Men, they argued, must not be thought to exist beyond gender relations. Their call for more women's history is being answered-not least of all in the book currently under review. The result is mixed, and the history of Irish masculinity has scarcely begun, but this book represents a highly commendable step in the right direction. The best essays in this volume are those which deal with "gender history" rather than the history of either men orwomen. It is not surprising to see David Fitzpatrick rising to the challenge again, provoking his readers to think about a commonplace subject (in this case, the Great Famine) in wholly new ways. Contrary to expectations,...