From Famine to Femme Fatale: The Irish Ladies Land League

Hey everyone. Welcome back. 

For much of the nineteenth century, individuals from the tiny island of Ireland dominated immigration in the United States. According to the Library of Congress, between 1820 and 1860, the Irish made up one-third of all immigrants coming into the United States and in the 1840s - at the height of the Great Famine - that number skyrocketed to 50%. Whereas before the famine the immigrants were mostly men, the makeup of the individuals coming into the United States evolved to include women and families. Eventually, per the data the quote “sum total of Irish-Americans exceeded the entire population of Ireland. New York City boasted more Irishmen than Dublin,” end quote. 

Desperate to escape the economic precarity in their home country, millions of Irish bet their future by taking passage toward America. Although Britain was closer in proximity, the United States offered more job opportunities for those unskilled laborers and thus, men and women boarded steamships headed west, hoping to make better lives for themselves and their loved ones. Yet, their connection with their homeland was not broken and a significant number of the Irish established immigration chains, sending for their families. They also stayed apprised of the latest developments back home - so when Michael Davitt established the Irish Land League in 1879 to fight for land reform, the Irish in America took note, establishing a companion branch the following year in 1880. By the fall, Irish American women had established the Ladies Irish National Land League. As I will get into shortly, the members of the Ladies Irish Land League not only put their heart into raising money and awareness for the home country, but they utilized the league to assert a public role in their communities in an era that remained hostile to the idea of women engaging in public discourse. 

So this week I am diving into the Ladies Land League. How did it get started? What were some of its goals? And what did it mean for women? 

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

This episode is a little different in that to tell this story fully, I have to share a bit of international history too. So if you will indulge me, my friends, we’re going to dip our toes ever so briefly across the Atlantic to Ireland. As I mentioned in my opener, one of the major push factors for Irish immigration in the nineteenth century centered around the Great Famine which destroyed the potato crop for several years from 1845 to 1852. Even after the famine, however, the United States was seen as offering a better life for poor Irish farmers who also contended with mass evictions and the pervasive problems associated with subsistence farming, not to mention the economic impacts of the near-famines of 1861-1864 and 1879-1882. 

The original Land League was established in County Mayo in 1879 by Michael Davitt who is described as an agrarian reformer and former Fenian. He was joined in leadership by Charles Stewart Parnell, a leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. This was a period when Ireland was suffering ongoing crop failure and rural unrest and the league became a national movement demanding land reform. As historian Ely M Janis explains in his article evaluating women’s participation in the league, the goal of the Irish chapter was to quote “exploit the rural unrest in Ireland to gain what became known as the ‘three Fs’: fair rents fixed by independent appraisal, fixity of tenure for tenants as long as rent was not in arrears, and the free sale of improvements made to holdings,” end quote. League leaders also hoped to leverage the movement to generate momentum to undercut British control of Ireland. The movement attracted a mix of individuals who were willing to put aside their difference in furtherance of a single goal and joined forces together under the single banner of the Land League. This made the organization unique; building support and leadership from a wide cross section of individuals who came from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, the Land League stood out. As historian Deirdre Moloney explains quote, “during most of the nineteenth century reform organizations in the United States, England, and in other pluralistic societies tended to be organized more rigidly along religious, class, and gender lines,” end quote. 

Despite originating in Ireland, the Land League was heavily reliant on its diasporic communities for support - including Canada and the United States. And while the Land League was a secular organization, the group still drew heavily from Irish American Catholics who were entering their second generation and the middle class in increasing numbers. Thus, in 1880 when Parnell and Davitt needed support and funding, they traveled to the United States. 

As I mentioned in my opener, famine and economic precarity forced millions of Irish to flee their homeland in search of better opportunities elsewhere. For many, their best chance of success was the United States. This was a moment where the Irish felt they were exercising agency. Many felt they were being exiled - only to land in America and  face a considerable amount of ridicule and distrust. Anyone who has seen political cartoons of the era will likely recognize some of the pervasive anti-Irish sentiment that permeated the newspapers - particularly in the East. This less than welcome environment caused Irish immigrants to circle their wagons and create deep connections with their fellow countrymen. The antagonism they faced also likely helped contribute to their sense of Irish Nationalism. As historian Deidre Moloney explains, the sense of exile helped fuel interest in the Land League since it gave the Irish a political alternative. 

Thus, as Parnell and Davitt made their way throughout the country, they had little trouble in convincing their fellow Irishmen to contribute whatever they could to their cause. While there were Irish American Catholics entering the middle class, there were still many Irish Americans who were stuck in low wage jobs. Yet, the duo still managed to raise over $300,000 in the course of three months for both the League and famine relief. Their cause proved so popular that while in the states, Parnell decided to establish an American branch in New York with the goal of increasing membership - and by extension more opportunities to raise additional awareness and funds for their cause. However, despite the initial fundraising excitement the American-based Land Leagues were not growing at a pace that the group anticipated. And here is where women enter the chat. 

League Leader Charles Parnell had family in the United States, sisters Fanny and Anna who both lived with their American-born mother Delia Tudor Stewart Parnell. The matriarch, a widow, raised her daughters as independent thinkers and actors - much more so than what was common for others of their class at the time. Neither daughter, for example, ever married - too worried about what the trappings of the institution would mean for their autonomy. Both women had literary interests and made a living through their words - Fanny as a poet and sister Anna as a journalist. Both sisters were involved with the League from its earliest days, doing their part to help raise awareness and calling on their neighbors to donate to the cause. In September 1879, before her brother and Davitt made their fundraising trip, Fanny wrote to the Boston Pilot to plead with her fellow Irish Americans quote, “Will not the Irish here, who can afford it, give something from their conveniences here to help our countrymen to their terrible need?” end quote. 

Fanny’s interest continued after the fundraising tour when she noticed that the Land League was not reaching its full potential. In her opinion, the organization’s sluggish growth in America could be enhanced by involving women. After discussing it with Michael Davitt, Fanny established the Ladies’ Land League of America which she hoped would inspire competition among the existing branches and drive more fundraising for the movement. Establishing the League also did something else - it gave Irish American women an opportunity to step into unchartered territory and challenge the Victorian gender norms that limited so much of their lives. 

Women in the United States had a long history of bucking against the confines of domesticity and during the Gilded Age women took advantage of new - and public - opportunities to prove once and for all that they were fully capable of both rearing children and engaging in the quote-unquote dirty business of politics; that they had the mental fortitude and capacity to handle the decisions necessary to be fully engaged political citizens. And Irish American women were no different. Like their native-born sisters, Irish-American women longed to be treated as something more than wife and mother. Participation in the Ladies Land League could, they hoped, bring about change while also bringing much needed aid to their friends and family in Ireland.

Thus a call was put out and on October 15, 1880 ladies gathered in New York City to establish the first Ladies’ Irish Land League. As the name suggests, the Ladies Land League put women at the center of the organization and every new branch established elected their own officers and passed resolutions that spoke to their individual needs. This, historian Ely Janis explains, quote “allowed Irish American women to carve out their own spaces within their communities and define their own priorities themselves,” end quote. At the initial meeting more than 100 women signed up and adopted the same constitution and bylaws as the companion men’s organization. Those who joined likely came in with experience as women had plenty of practice as organizers and collectors at local church fairs and were familiar with maximizing their fundraising efforts. As Fanny Parnell suspected, once word got out that the women had organized a Ladies chapter of the Land League, interest in developing subsequent chapters spread quickly. Soon Parnell was fielding requests for information about how to organize local chapters and inquiries about ways to obtain copies of the constitution used to establish the League. Local chapters cropped up throughout the country in major cities including San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, and St. Louis. 

To maximize participation, organizers kept fees low - some as low as a quarter - allowing women from a broad spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds to participate. 

While the total membership figures in the Ladies Land Leagues are unknown, conservative estimates place national enrollment at around 10,000. This figure was calculated by historian Ely Janis and is based on reported enrollments in the Irish World newspaper and he argues is likely an under count of the total membership No matter the exact figure, participation in the League offered Irish American women a chance at building transatlantic networks while also stepping into a space historically treated as reserved for men. Members of the League used the confines of domesticity to their advantage - claiming that it was because of their experiences as wives and mothers that they were specifically well suited to run local land league chapters. As Fanny Parnell asserted quote, “this Land League business is essentially a woman’s business, because it is essentially a work of philanthropy and humanity,” end quote. 

League participation gave women a chance to engage in politics while still maintaining femininity and it also gave members an opportunity to gain wider acceptance into American society by demonstrating their respectability, something that was a hot commodity in the Gilded Age. And for the most part, male members of the Land League were on board with women joining ranks in the Irish cause. Despite the widespread limited view of gender and the expectations of women during this period, most male land leaguers understood how valuable women were to the cause, with one newspaper editor writing partially that women’s participation was quote “one of the most interesting and may grow to be one of the most potent phases of this great movement,” end quote. 

The Ladies’ Land League in the United States achieved such success that it inspired Fanny’s sister Anna to establish a sister organization in Ireland in 1881. Anna, now living fulltime in Ireland, became president of the Irish Ladies Land League and - much like the American organization - the Ladies League went on to be a powerhouse in terms of fundraising and became a critical line of support once the men in the movement started getting arrested. In both Ireland and the United States, women largely enjoyed the support of their fellow male leaguers because despite the fact that they were stepping into the political arena, members of the Ladies Land League were still sticking close to prescribed gender norms. Perhaps a result of messaging, female leaguers remained focused on using their organization to raise money for the cause - even when their male colleagues escalated their fight with talk of taking up arms against Great Britain. 

Of course not everyone was in agreement and on board with the idea of women entering the land of politics - no matter how much it was dressed up or touted as an extension of their domestic duties. The idea of women participating in a political movement, for some, felt counterintuitive to their gender - including those in the American Catholic church. One Bishop in St. Paul Minnesota criticized the lady leaguers, asserting that the movement did not start with women and thus their participation was quote “in opposition to all their womanly instincts,” end quote. 

The Bishop’s comments seemed to ignore or forget that despite the touted domestic ideal of women remaining in the home, for many Irish American women, their reality required their working outside the home and their economic contributions were critical to their families survival. Not to mention it was a wee bit ironic that a member of the church was criticizing women for raising money - when the church was all too happy to accept women’s unpaid labor when it came time to fundraise for the church. 

The Land League suffered from deviating ideologies and infighting which ultimately caused both the Irish and American organizations to splinter and fall apart. For the American Leaguers, the divergence came down to whether the group should maintain their focus on obtaining relief for their countrymen in Ireland, or whether they should combine Irish relief with broader efforts within the United States. These differences of opinion became public knowledge and, some argue, contributed to the League’s downfall. The organization was also dealt a hard blow with the unexpected death of leader Fanny Parnell on July 20, 1882. Without her powerful voice championing the benefits of including women in the movement, the Ladies League organization in the U.S. basically withered away on the vine.  

Despite its brevity, the Ladies Land League nevertheless gave Irish American women an entry way into the public sphere and gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to perform respectably in a historically male dominated space while still holding onto their femininity. Much of the details of the work performed by the Parnell sisters remains illusive - lost to history due, in part, to the lack of primary sources. The Parnell family did not preserve their personal papers and later accounts written by male participants of the Land League chose to write off or otherwise diminish the sisters’ contributions to the movement. 

Irish American women - like their fellow male countrymen - had strong ties to their homeland and took the opportunity presented with the Land League to both support their kin and announce their desire to be part of the public discourse in the male-dominated space of politics. The Land League was a transnational organization supporting the Irish in their fight for land reform. A short-lived movement, the Ladies Land League is also an example of women reframing gender limitations to assert new places and spaces for themselves in the Gilded Age - a trend that continues into the Progressive Era. 

And before I sign off for the day I do have a special announcement - if you follow the podcast on social media then you may have seen but I will be giving a talk later this summer in Boston! That’s right peeps! Your favorite neighborhood podcaster is making her way east to History Camp where I will be talking about one of my passions and areas of expertise - labor, women, and the evolution of workplace safety. Should you be around in August, I hope you consider attending. I can’t wait! You can learn more about History Camp - including how to register - through their website history camp dot org. I have included a link in the show notes for this episode. 

Thanks, peeps. I will see you next time.