They Kept their Skirts on: Gender-Bending Motifs in Early Irish Hagiography

Abstract

One of the odd things about early medieval Irish hagiography is its lack of cross-dressing nuns. It is true that this lacuna may not immediately strike the casual observer. However, in late antiquity and the early medieval period, Greek and Latin narratives of Mediterranean holy women—in North Africa, Rome, Constantinople, Syria—are, if not replete, at least studded with cross-dressing virgins and “manly” women. As has been noted in the scholarly literature, narratives portray various holy women who dressed as men to pursue cenobitic asceticism (as did Theodora of Alexandria, a desert “mother” of late antiquity), to travel freely in missionary enterprises (as did Thecla to follow the apostle Paul in the New Testament apocrypha), or to avoid marriage (as did saints Agnes and Eusebia).¹ It is worth noting that early medieval Irish holy women performed these and other transgressive activities, but kept their skirts on.