Ireland and Masculinities in History: An Introduction

Abstract

The introduction to this collection outlines previous scholarly work on Ireland, history, and masculinities. It gives an overview of the essays contained in the volume, contextualising their approaches within the broader field. While research on masculinities generally tends to vary depending on geographical focus, the dearth of historical work on Irish masculinities—and of genders and sexualities in general—is notable, especially when compared with the development of these areas in the historiography of the United States and Britain. This chapter suggests that the paucity of historical analyses of masculinity, when compared with other fields such as literature, cultural and film studies, is indicative not only of methodological conservatism in Irish historiography but also of a tendency to equate gender history with women’s history.