Alice Stopford Green:

High Priestess of the Irish

Revolution

Limerick City

Library

Overview: Links and Intersections

as historian.as woman.as African activist / philanthropyas Irish nationalistproblematic position within Irish

history.

Background / Context

• b. 1847 into a Protestant family in Kells• Seventh child of Archdeacon Edward

Stopford. • Access to her father’s library taught

herself Greek, German and metaphysics.

• Aged 16 she went temporarily blind. Attended lectures in the College of Sciences in Dublin.

John Richard Green 1837-1883

• In 1877 Alice married the Oxford historian John Richard Green and became her husband’s research assistant until his death in 1883.

A short history of the English people (1874)

• First social and cultural history of England.

• 32,000 copies sold in the first year.

• Influential throughout British Empire and America.

Professionalization of History

• J.R. Green was a co-founder with James Bryce of the English Historical Review.

• Professionalization of history can be considered as an example of how knowledge was supplanting power at end of 19th c.

Alice Green’s Network

• As a result of her marriage Alice meets many leading historians and intellectuals of her day.

• Gained reputation as an intellectual and robust conversationalist.

• Her home became a meeting place for scholars, politicians, social and political activists.

An independent historian

• After her husband’s death Alice writes two histories as an independent historian.

• 1888 – Henry II.• 1894 – Town Life in

the Fifteenth Century.

A.S. Green as historian

• Reacted against notions of professional history capable of scientific methodology. She saw all history as subjective / political.

• Experimental with sources: considering landscapes, poetry and song, language etc. as an important part of historical evidence.

The liberal network

• Through her marriage and engagement with world of letters she built up exceptional network of influential women and men.

• Networks served this knowledge-power nexus.

Women’s Issues

• Early writings about women:– ‘Woman’s place in the world of

letters’, Nineteenth Century, 1897, vol. xli, 244, 964-74.

– Times, 19 May 1897, Letter re: University Degrees for Women

– ‘Growing bureaucracy and parliamentary decline’, Nineteenth Century, 1900, vol. xlvii, 279, 839-46.

Florence Nightingale

                  

      

Beatrice Webb

Green: an advocate of Women’s Rights?

• 1889 – Green was one of the signatories of ‘Appeal against female suffrage’.

• Why did Green initially oppose suffrage?

• How did she conceptualise woman’s place in society?

Woman’s transcendent role

• Green saw women’s role outside the political sphere as social reorganisers, as influencing politics by serving beyond its parameters.

– Her work for Africa and her support for Irish nationalism became space for realising this vision.

Mary Kingsley

Mary Kingsley & Alice Green

• From 1895-1900 Mary Kingsley and Alice Green become closely associated and Kingsley inspires Green’s interest in West Africa.

• Women’s work as philanthropic endeavour.

• Correspondence held in the National Library of Ireland.

Re-presenting Africa

• Pan-African movement starts in 1900 and various figures involved in both ventures namely E.W. Blyden.

• From African Society Green encouraged other campaigners, notably E.D. Morel & Stephen Gwynn.

The African Society

• Green establishes African Society following death of Kingsley in 1900.

• On the surface it might be understood as a tool of empire, amassing knowledge on Africa. Membership inclusive of many professions associated with Africa.

• Beneath the surface it might be understood as a seed bed for anti-colonial interactions.

Journal of the African Society

• Longest surviving publication in the West specializing in African affairs.

• Catalysed a new discussion on Africa.

• Transcends political difference.

Changing views on Africa

• Finances the setting up of the West African Mail.

• Invites African chiefs and elders to London.

• Through Africa she tries to transcend political impotency.

E.D.Morel

Roger Casement to

A.S.Green 24 April 1904:

“the claim of the Congo people must appeal to every sincere and genuine

Irish national: the more we love our land and

wish to help her people the more keenly we feel we

cannot turn a deaf ear to suffering and injustice

in any part of the world.”

Alice Green and Irish Nationalism

• Strongly opposed to the Boer War.

• Irish nationalist sympathies encouraged by her husband, found new impetus through Gaelic revival and especially Gaelic League and language renaissance.

• A nation is its past?

Speaking Out on Ireland’s behalf

• ‘It has been the object of English instruction in Ireland to keep the people in ignorance of their own history. This evil is intensified when their ignorance is exploited to depress them yet further by the repetition of calumnies which have done political service for centuries …’– Freeman’s Journal – 11 March 1905

Books on the history of Ireland

• The making of Ireland and its undoing 1200-1600 (1908)

• Irish Nationality (1911)• The Old Irish World (1912)• The Government of Ireland (1921)• The History of the Irish State to 1014

(1925)• Studies from Irish History (1926)

Irish Nationality (1911)

• Most influential work in moving the mind of young Ireland since the essays of Thomas Davis.

• 28 Feb 1911 Yorkshire Observer described Green as the ‘most important Irish writer of the day.’

Irish activity

• Irish language revival and promotion of medieval scholarship.

• Historical Polemics (Graveyard at Durrow, use of Tara by Lord Aberdeen)

• Cumman Na mBan.• London Committee of the Irish

Volunteers.• Defence of Roger Casement.

Vol 1:3,21 Feb 1914

Howth Gun-running

• It was in her home in Grosvenor Road the decision was taken by Green, Casement, Childers, Figgis to run guns in to Ireland.

• Green chaired the private committee which financed the gun-running.

• Royalties from A Short History of the English People paid for the guns.

Molly Childers &

Mary Spring-RiceAsgard

July 1914

Dedication on the Senate casket

• No real history of Ireland has yet been written. When the true story is finally worked out – one not wholly occupied with the many and insatiable plunderers – it will give us a noble and reconciling vision of Irish nationality. Silence and neglect will no longer hide the fame of honourable men.

African SocietyAnti-Boer WarPan-Africanism

SuffrageCumann na Ban

Howth gunrunning

Irish NationalismGaelic League

Irish Volunteers

PhilanthropyCongo Reform Assoc.White Cross Society

Resistance In

Interaction

Why is Green problematic?

• Proximity to the centre of power (Political and intellectual).

• Association as a Protestant revolutionary.

• Use of history for ‘political’ purposes.

• Strategy to join up resistance.• Gender.

Acknowledgements

• Rachel Barrett for her research assistance.

• Staff of the Limerick City Library, and particularly Mike Maguire.

• Disclaimer: the views expressed in this lecture are not necessarily the views of the library!