The United Irishwomen/Irish Countrywomen’s Association: Re-imagining opportunities for rural women’s leisure in the Irish Free State, 1920-1939

Taking the United Irishwomen (UI)/Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) as a case study, this chapter opens up new debates about the leisure lives of rural women in the Irish Free State during the Jazz Age. Firstly, by shifting attention away from the metropolis to rural locales, the chapter reveals new and exciting ‘home-grown’ leisure opportunities created by and for rural Irish women. This included dancing, singing, drama, keep-fit, day-trips, crafting as well as learning new skills and taking part in annual summer schools. Here women spent time away from home and domestic duties to be with other women, offering mutual support and having fun in each other’s company. This was a radical proposition in 1930s Ireland. Secondly, by documenting these activities, the chapter challenges long-held assumptions in histories of leisure that rural, older and married women had limited leisure lives. Thirdly, by highlighting how the UI/ICA successfully carved out new spaces for women to enjoy themselves, despite rural poverty, political unrest and increasing social control by a conservative Catholic Church, the chapter offers fresh insights into the everyday lives of rural women. Here dominant narratives of political, religious, social and economic strife, alongside the endorsement of traditional gender roles, are complicated by the agency of rural women who ensured they had opportunities to enjoy themselves but also to acquire new skills required for active citizenship. This was transformative, locally and nationally, in challenging the prevailing view that Irish women should and would spend all their time working unpaid within the home.