Abstract
The history of Ireland's ‘Big Houses’ and landed estates has received attention from scholars interested in their material culture, their place in the history of land rights, their inhabitants and their roles in local and national life, and their survival or destruction, particularly in Revolutionary Ireland (c.1912–22). Maeve O’Riordan's book offers us yet another perspective that of the experiences of their women, sometimes the matriarchs, sometimes unmarried or ‘married in’. All are fascinating and the author makes a cogent argument for the serious analysis of their lives in the spectrum of research on Ireland's ‘country houses’.
These are the women of the Irish ascendancy or what was left of it by the end of the First World War when the book's temporal span ends. This period covers one of the most dramatic in the history of landed estates as many were sold or diminished by successive land acts, in addition to the increasing tensions between nationalism and unionism and the dramatic reduction in Ireland's population through migration. All these factors, in different ways, were played out in the landed estates of Ireland. Such estates often provided the MPs who went to Westminster, the Poor Law Guardians and Justices of the Peace of the local area, all powerful positions that came under increasing pressure from the exigencies of the ‘Irish Question’ throughout this time period. But what of the women?
The book utilises papers from twelve different families to tell their stories, an impressive archival feat especially as the narratives are woven so skilfully together into eight thematic strands: house and estate; courtship; married life; producing heirs; family and friendship networks; expressions of taste; independence and life outside the Big House; and philanthropy and activism, a key part of the public world for women of the titled classes. Specifically, the families included in the book are all Munster based: The Earls of Bantry, Viscounts Doneraile, Barons Carbery, Inchiquin and Monteagle and the untitled Herberts of Muckross and Cahirnane, O’Briens of Cahirmoyle, Grehans of Clomeen and Ryans of Inch. O’Riordan persuasively argues against the notion of these women as ornamental figures, good only for hosting dinner parties and providing male heirs.
Women of the Country House has elements to please many different kinds of readers: for those who wish to know the technical detail of how large and valuable the estates were, O’Riordan has provided a synthesis; for those interested in marriage, O’Riordan tells us that the average age of marriage was twenty-five, or twenty-three if marrying landlords and that marrying cousins was relatively common in elite circles; there are tales of poor dealings with the local tenantry, of a lack of community spirit and a certain failing in fealty when families did not live up to local expectations. The case of Mary Carbery, who saw herself as a stand-in for Queen Victoria in West Cork, is interesting in highlighting how benevolence and ‘patronage’ may be viewed by such women. How it was perceived and received by the ‘benefactors’ in the local area may be quite another matter.
Older women facilitated the matches of younger women, and O’Riordan notes the range of ways in which introductions were made and successful unions struck. They were involved, however, in other pursuits than the social whirl of teas and dances with which they were most associated (and which do have a basis in reality). Chapters 6 and 7 are particularly rich in describing the world of women both inside and outside the home, including, for example, immersion in art and culture, or travelling and engaging in sports. These elite women were more physically active than is often depicted, particularly in the socially sanctioned arena of hunting. Chapter 8 illustrates some of the women's engagement in philanthropy and politics where O’Riordan critically analyses their contributions, pointing out that their assumption, based on their class, that they were intrinsically superior to those they aided, led them not to question the social order and the status quo, and thus never to tackle the root causes of poverty or the other problems they attempted to alleviate.
The book is richly illustrated which is not always possible in academic hardbacks and the author is to be commended for this feat, along with her inclusion not just of portraits but of scenery and poetry, all of which help to bring the text alive. The range of documentary sources is even more impressive, and indicative of the methods necessarily employed by historians of women: the more expected letters and diaries are included, as well as more innovative analysis which includes sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and account books. O’Riordan notes the casual misogyny in the documentation of these families whereby all demographic and life history details are noted for males in the family, but not for women – in some cases, birth dates are not even recorded for daughters in families of the peerage. This fact illustrates further the impressive combination of sources presented in this book.
The book ends at the point where many country houses were soon to face a crisis, an interesting end point with latitude for the author to revisit this topic to follow up on the fates of these women and their families. As O’Riordan notes at the beginning, changes to family, class and home ‘all took their toll’ on the position of the women in this book leading most to be forgotten, even when their former houses remain (p. 1). Women of the Country House does justice to their histories, offering a nuanced, detailed, and lively analysis of their world.