25-04-2025
How did the housewives of rural Ireland make money?
Analysis: Census categories camouflaged the multi-faceted and often profitable nature of many women's work within the home
Women's traditional handcrafts (such as spinning, weaving, knitting, embroidery and crochet) were crucial aspects of many rural family economies. Rural women drew on domestic production to bring extra cash into the home, but these practices were on the wane at the turn of the twentieth century. From the 1930s, however, a concerted effort was made by women to promote and preserve the production of 'homespun' goods.
Attitudes towards women's work were discriminatory for decades in Ireland. The male breadwinner ideal was culturally elevated as the proper model for a respectable family unit. Preference for a male 'family wage', to meet the needs of one household, was central to the rationale for gender discrimination in the workplace. Discrimination was embodied in the marriage bar, unequal pay, and further restrictions on female employment via the Conditions of Employment Act, 1936. Male breadwinner ideology aligned with Catholic social teaching, and was emphasised in Article 41.2 of the Constitution, which locates women's primary role and 'duties' within the home.
The male breadwinner ideal was never a universal reality. Most households required more than one income, brought in by women as well as men, to stay afloat. However, statistics suggest that the ideology was effective. Census returns from 1926-1961 report that the largest group of adult females were those 'engaged in home duties', peaking at 60% in 1961. Nevertheless, while few women were officially engaged in full-time labour outside the home, the census does not account for the many women who worked from home.
From RTÉ Brainstorm, How did the marriage bar affect Irish women?
The 'homespun' movement was encouraged through the work of Muriel Gahan and several key organisations for over sixty years. Gahan, the first female vice-president of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), is described by her biographer, Geraldine Mitchell, as 'champion of rural women and craftworkers'. With Gahan's encouragement, the RDS was also a consistent promoter of rural women's enterprise, showcasing their products through grants and promotion at its annual Spring and Horse Shows, and the annual National Craft Competition. Further bodies which Gahan worked with, and which were frequently funded by the RDS, were the Irish Country Shop, the Irish Homespun Society, and the Irish Countrywomen's Association.
Muriel Gahan's work in this area commenced in the 1930s, when there had been a noticeable decline in domestic production. In 1937, a 74-year-old Mrs Regan from Ballymabilla, county Galway, reported to the Irish Folklore Commission that 'about fifty years ago most of the people in my district had spinning wheels ... they spun their own thread and weaved their own cloth. Nobody in the district has a spinning wheel now and the industry has died away.'
Under Gahan's leadership, the Irish Homespun Society sent craft instructors to rural parts of the country to investigate and reinvigorate traditional practices. The society's motto, 'To Keep Women Spinning in their Homes', pointed to the need for a financial outlet for rural women who were confined for both practical and cultural reasons to the domestic sphere. This motto was uncontroversial and undisruptive to the gendered ideology of the newly-independent Irish state. In 1937, the new constitution sought 'to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.' Moreover, the revival of traditional practices was welcome in de Valera's protectionist economy of the 1930s, which put a nostalgic emphasis on rural self-sufficiency. By reinvigorating this work, the society simultaneously preserved traditional crafts and raised rural incomes.
From RTÉ Archives, in this episode of A Woman's World from 1961, Muriel Gahan of the Irish Countrywomen's Association talks about the rural programme
By the mid-thirties, the Irish Homespun Society had over 80 knitters on the Aran Islands on their books. They had seen success in expanding the glove-making industry in Termonfeckin, County Louth, and knitted slippers were now being made by women on Cruit Island in Donegal. In 1934, a local craft organiser made a return visit to the Dingle Peninsula. She reported that the dozen women to whom she had sent cards for wool and had taught how to use them were now spinning again and selling their socks to the local fishermen for 6 shillings and 6 pence a pair.
The Industries, Art, and General Purposes Committee of the RDS contributed prize money to many women who weren't able to work beyond the home. At the 1936 RDS Spring Show, twelve different crafts were demonstrated by the Irish Homespun Society. Sales from this show amounted to over £500 and the Homespun Society noted that as a result, 'a real stimulus had been given to the various crafts in all parts of the country.' If items were not sold locally, the Homespun Society organised for them to be sold through the Irish Country Shop at 23 St Stephen's Green. The shop, a popular meeting-place for many years, also housed a café and gallery, which held its first Exhibition of Country Industries in 1933.
In 1946, Country Markets Limited was founded as a co-operative to sell rural produce and crafts. Run in co-operation with the Irish Countrywomen's Association (ICA), Country Markets ran handcraft proficiency tests and regional competitions to promote a high standard in the industry. The tests survive to this day through the work of the ICA. In 1955, prizes were awarded by Country Markets in eighteen counties to women for embroidery, lace, smocking, lumra (fleece) and tufted rugs, patchwork and knitting. While regional development provided some new opportunities for an increasing number of women in factories from the 1960s onwards, rural women continued to be particularly dependent on domestic production to augment the household income.
The necessity of domestic production for women, while difficult to measure, indicates the gendered experience of Ireland's post-independence economy. Women's participation in the official labour force was restricted for decades through the marriage bar and unequal pay. However, the promotion and expansion of the 'homespun' movement certainly leads us to query the extent to which women were truly, as census returns portray, confined to unpaid 'home duties' during the twentieth century.
How should we define 'home duties'? Enumerators of the 1966 census were instructed to assign this category to 'housewives and other members of household mainly occupied in unpaid domestic duties at home'. Such an indeterminate categorisation camouflaged the multi-faceted and often profitable nature of many women's work within the home, indicating the need for a more nuanced historical understanding of their economic productivity.
