Show Notes
Listen in for stories about soldiers for dowries, women running taverns under Christ Church Cathedral, the first woman to build a castle in Ireland before throwing her architect lover out the window, the life and times of Gráinne O’Malley, and the most detailed and engaging account of what the Brehon Laws really meant for women in medieval Ireland.
Dr. Gillian Kenny is an historian and expert in the lives of women in medieval and early modern Ireland. An Associate Professor in the History Department of University College Dublin and Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies in Trinity College Dublin. Many of you will know her from her appearance on podcasts such as BBC’s “You’re Dead to Me” (where I personally thought she was funnier than the comedian) and various RTÉ documentaries. She’s currently working on a biography of the ‘Pirate Queen’ Gráinne O’Malley to be published in 2027 by Yale. On Substack, you can find her at Unruly Ireland where she shares her equally funny and fascinating knowledge of Irish history. Gillian’s research into the lives of medieval and early modern women in Ireland has been invaluable to my work and the questions I’ve been asking through the Women of Ireland Project over the years. So, I was extremely excited to get to speak with her here. And she did not disappoint.
Tip: If you want to take this conversation out for a walk with you and just listen to it, open in the Substack App, and select ‘audio only’ above the video I’ve always been drawn to medieval Irish history. I mean, it is the most epic. Very “Game of Thrones,” as Gillian said, with all sorts of political intrigue and great betrayals, battles, and larger-than-life-personalities, and made all the better by the healthy dose of embellishment the professional poet-class—the spin doctors of their day—used to record such shenanigans to memory and vellum. I mean, some of the stuff they wrote is what I imagine would happen if Terry Pratchett teamed up with George R.R. Martin to write a film script, and then had it produced by the Monty Python lads. It’s surreal and brutal and brilliant. I also think the very landscape of Ireland has something to do with my early childhood fascination with that past. Despite it being one of the most ‘far-away’ epochs in Ireland’s history, I would argue that medieval life left the most notable fingerprint. You can’t turn a corner on a back road in Ireland without suddenly being met with a Norman tower house, nor are you ever too far from some medieval monk’s cell, or church or monastery. Even the place-names in Ireland owe much of their origins to those times, with Kill or Cill, meaning ‘Church’ (from medieval Irish cell, from the Latin cella) being one of the most common Irish toponym elements. And then there’s the estimated 45,000 Raths—the homes of medieval nobles and ‘strong farmers’—that pattern the aerial view of Ireland in majestic whorls and swirls that are, literally, the stuff of legend. A bit like that urban myth, “you’re never more than 6ft away from a rat,” I (unqualifiably) say, “you’re never more than 6 miles away from medieval history” in Ireland. But, like any history, we are often only peering at it through a prism, hoping to catch a glimpse of precious, illuminating light. And when it comes to the lives of medieval women in Ireland, that prism has definitely been rose-tinted. I’m not quite sure where the story came from, or how I picked it up, but I grew up firm in the belief that the ‘Old-Gaelic’ world of medieval Ireland was an absolutely great time for women. That it was, to use the words of Peter Berresford-Ellis, the time of “the emancipated female.” As I often say, “We are the stories we tell ourselves,” and the story that Ireland was once a place where women were held in high status, enjoying greater freedoms and legal protections than many women experience today, has long been part of Ireland’s cultural narrative. Especially for women. And especially
More from The Women of Ireland Project
A conversation about black pudding sounds very niche and possibly even a bit ‘off piste’ for the usual Women of Ireland Project content. However, what really struck me as I read Kate Ryan’s new book, Blood, Guts and Black Pudding: Ireland’s Dying Art of Blood as Food is that food history is really social history—and perhaps, even more importantly for my own interests here, food history is women’s history. As Kate explains, the origin and recipes of one of Ireland’s oldest foods lies with a group of women now largely forgotten. Women who presided over the creation of a highly nutritious food source, ensured nothing went to waste and passed down their own personal recipe, mother to daughter. As I said in the opening of this episode: “When you take something that’s been around as long as black pudding, it can become this incredible vehicle to go back in time and look at some of the macro social changes that were happening, through the micro changes that were happening in how people interacted with food, food production and food consumption.” I learned so much from Kate’s book that surprised me. Not least the fact that part of the reason why Ireland’s 19th century Gaelic Revival (which I draw on often in my research) didn’t include much of a food revival is because, as a domain gendered female, it was mostly overlooked by the male-centred interests of the movement’s nationalist leaders. So, I just had to chat to her about it all. We spoke about seasonal traditions, the role of blood-letting rituals in Ireland’s ancient agrarian calendar and its relevance to the festival of Bealtaine. I shared a personal revelation I encountered in her book from learning how such blood-letting practices informed place-names across Ireland. And we discuss the communal meitheal around slaughtering and food production, the highly gendered—but time and expertise efficient—division of labour involved, and the enormous responsibility that rested with the woman of the house to make sure no food was wasted or spoiled. We also delved into the much older history of blood as food, including the ancient but not old practice of live-bleeding cattle and sheep. Kate describes how blood could be taken from a living animal without killing it; a practice that provided a source of nutrition while allowing valuable livestock to continue producing milk or calves. The earliest written record she discusses takes us back to the Táin, while the practice itself appears to have survived in parts of Ireland into surprisingly recent times. We also discuss how colonisation and, eventually, An Górta Mór, changed people’s relationship to this food source and altered how it was viewed among people for generations to come. And then, of course, I had to ask about the very shocking (to me) revelation that most black puddings are no longer made with fresh, but dried, blood and the modern, commercial food systems that have led to the demise of fresh blood black pudding. Never again will I look at black pudding, a food I consume often, in quite the same way. And more importantly, I will no longer overlook food history in my research—it offers a rich source of the lived experiences and life-ways of women ordinarily written out of formal histories. Enjoy! xx P.S. This conversation is also available wherever you usually find your podcasts (just search The Women of Ireland Project) if you prefer to listen to it on-the-go. Kate Ryan is a multi-award-winning food writer and founder of flavour.ie, a platform dedicated to promoting Irish food. She holds an MA in Food Studies and Irish Foodways and a Postgraduate Diploma in Irish Food Culture. Here on Substack, she writes Peckish Times, and as a freelance food writer, has written for the Irish Examiner, Echo and the Business Post on the intersections of food, drink, travel, sustainability and culture. Originally from Bristol in the UK, she’s lived in West Cork for the last two decades. Her new book, Blood, Guts and Black Pudding: Ire
What have anxieties about Irish men’s masculinity and their masculine strength got to do with how Irish national identity was constructed and created in the 19th and 20th century? And how did that history shape the lives of women in the post-independence Irish Free State of the 20th century? I will admit, that when I began, many years ago, researching the social forces which had impacted women in recent Irish history, the role of something as ‘abstract’ as ideals of masculinity was not something I had ever thought about. But once you start to see the broader psychological and social effects of Britain’s colonial ‘feminising’ of Irish men, and how that informed how Ireland sought to achieve its independence from Britain, so many things begin to fall into place. Not only in terms of what the ramifications of this would be for women in post-independence Ireland, but also why so many of the things we associate with ‘Irish identity’ today—from the Irish language, to Gaelic games, to mythical figures like Cú Chulainn and Fionn MacCumhail—originated in a desire to “reconnect to a lost Irish culture that was very male and very heroic.” This is why I was delighted to have this opportunity to speak with Dr. Aidan Beatty here, who is an expert in that history. There is so much in this conversation that will challenge, alter, or illuminate some aspect of modern Irish history you thought you knew. From Countess Markievicz urging women to “destroy the feminine part of themselves” to Patrick Pearse telling men that they are a “eunuch” if they don’t speak Irish, and why some of Aidan’s college students have likened this history to the ‘Andrew Tate Effect,’ this is most definitely not the history we got taught in school. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it. Belinda xx P.S. Aidan references on several occasions how Irish men were depicted in the Punch Cartoons of the 19th and 20th century. You can access such images here in the Punch Archive Dr. Aidan Beatty, is an historian and the author of Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938 (which I highly, highly recommend reading) Originally from Galway, he is based in the United States where he is a lecturer in the history department of Carnegie Mellon University, where he researches and teaches on quite a diverse array of topics from Irish, British and Jewish history, Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism, and, of course masculinity. He’s currently editing a book that will be out next year on the history of the Irish far-right (will definitely want to chat with him again when this is out!)