People's ordinary, everyday lives and more specifically, their leisure activities are often obscured within existing academic research on 1920s-30s Ireland.
This book seeks to redress that neglect by exploring the relationship between identity, recreation, and culture both North and South of the border, with particular attention to women's lived experiences.
Leisurely pursuits during this period were commonly overshadowed by religious Influence and the nation-building projects in post-partition Ireland. Nevertheless, there existed alternative spaces, where people enjoyed dancing, singing, listening to music, shopping, glamour, reading magazines, swimming, travelling, and going to the cinema. Such activities reflected international trends beyond national borders.
This book documents those activities and spaces through a feminist lens and intersectional analysis of gender, class, religion and rural/urban identities.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: ‘The jazz spirit’: Women and leisure on the island of Ireland in the 1920-30s – Eileen Hogan and Louise Ryan
1 ‘Tobogganing down to Hell’: Locating the flapper north and south of the border – Louise Ryan and Rachel Sayers
2 ‘Shaping her own style’: Female fashionistas across Ireland, 1919-1935– Síle Hunt
3 ‘The film is primarily for the women of all countries’: Cinema as international community – Veronica Johnson
4 ‘Enticing Spaces’: The Architecture of Leisure and Glamour in 1930s Ireland – Candace White
5 ‘Wanted’: Women and jazz music and dance on the island of Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s – Eileen Hogan and Ruth Stanley
6 Cultural retrenchment: from ‘jazzing’ to ‘old time waltzing’ – Tom Spalding
7 The gendered geographies of the modern girl and the Dublin tramcar: The ‘Jolly Flapper’ incident – Denis Linehan
8 Culture and conviction: The Modest Dress and Deportment Crusade in an international context – Úna Ní Bhroiméil
9 The United Irishwomen/Irish Countrywomen’s Association: Re-imagining opportunities for rural women’s leisure in the Irish Free State, 1920-1939 – Caitriona Beaumont
10 The Life of Mary (Mamie) Murphy: An Irish Modern Woman – Alison Bohan
Afterword – Claire Langhamer
About the Author :
Eileen Hogan is Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, Ireland.
Louise Ryan is Senior Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University.
