‘At the Right Hand of God was Their Soul’: An t-Óglách,the National Army,and Hegemonic Masculinity During the Irish Civil War,1922–1923

Abstract

Understandings of masculinities are neither developed in isolation nor are entirely culturally unique but are multifaceted, hierarchal, and adapted throughout history to fit the specific milieu in which they operated. In the context of the Irish Civil War, 1922–1923, the Irish National Army's journal, An t-Óglách, constructed its model of hegemonic masculinity into a complex dual dialectic of anti-colonialist rhetoric and British appropriation. Looking at militarism, linguistics, and athletics, this article argues that An t-Óglách underlined the National Army's engagement in physical force and cultural nationalism as a performance of hegemonic masculinity, with the intent to confer legitimacy onto the National Army as a military and cultural institution in the early years of the Irish Free State.

Introduction

An t-Óglách, the Irish National Army's journal, was published during the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). ¹ It celebrated the members of the National Army as performers of hegemonic masculinity, with the Civil War as the site of their performance. This article explores how masculinities, the socially constructed and historically shifting norms, behaviours, and roles attributed to men, were defined by An t-Óglách. In conjunction with the journal's emphasis on militarism, expressions of cultural nationalism, particularly language and sport, significantly impacted An t-Óglách's ideas regarding masculinities. An t-Óglách's definition of masculinity attempted to fashion ‘an identity which was distinctly Gaelic and separate from that of the British’. ² However, its definition was ultimately founded upon British understandings of masculinities. This article argues that An t-Óglách's definition of hegemonic masculinity simultaneously rejected and appropriated British ideas. The journal identified the military and cultural acts of the National Army as the standard of masculinity during the Civil War, striving to confer legitimacy onto the National Army in post-independence Ireland.

Hegemonic masculinity emerged as a concept in the early 1980s. R.W. Connell's pioneering research on gender inequality argued that within specific social and historical contexts there exists a plurality of masculinities and a hierarchy in which hegemonic and subordinate masculinities are determined. She concluded that hegemonic masculinity was an oppressive practice which ensured the global subordination of women. ³ Critics claimed the theory was ambiguous, essentialising and heteronormative. ⁴ In response, Connell acknowledged that the concept should not only be concerned with men's power over women but should be expanded to understand the complexity of masculine hierarchies and the agency of subordinate groups, the global intricacies of masculinities, the body as an object and agent of masculinities, and the dynamics and instability of masculinities. ⁵

Hegemonic masculinity is a useful theoretical framework for analysing masculinities during the Irish revolution. Not only did multiple models of masculinities exist in Ireland, but as Jennifer Redmond argues, Connell's theory can deconstruct gender hierarchy and answer why ‘the soldier citizen prepared to die for his political ideals [was] the premier form of masculinity for much of the revolutionary period’. ⁶ Ben Griffith's advancement of Connell's theory to include communication communities is also helpful. Griffith defined communication communities as ‘social formulations in which particular forms of masculinity are given meaning’ and can be identified by which ‘models of masculinity circulate and are invested with varying amounts of authority or prestige’. ⁷ As demonstrated by Connor Heffernan's examination of physical culture in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century, communication communities existed in various forms. For Heffernan, a physical culture magazine represented a communication community which created, contested, and conserved a model of hegemonic masculinity that was acknowledged by a specific group of men as ideal. ⁸

Scholarship examining the production and performance of masculinities during the Irish revolution has grown significantly. Although gender in the revolution's historiography has become synonymous with women due to a ‘reluctan[ce] to recognise the gendering of men’, research regarding masculinities and Irish nationalism has advanced. ⁹ Anne McClintock's argument that certain British colonial subjects existed within an anachronistic space, offers an analysis complimentary to Connell's theory. ¹⁰ Scholars have thus argued that this assumed atavism of the Irish race, specifically of Irish men, in part spurred the emergence and hierarchal order of masculinities within nationalist circles. ¹¹ Timothy Ellis contended that a particular model of masculinity ‘keen to throw off the shackles of effeminizing colonialism’, assumed hegemony within nationalist ideology. ¹² Aidan Beatty posited that nationalists conflated sovereignty and masculine strength. Beatty illustrated that hegemonic masculinity was centred around male self-sacrifice, with martyrs exalted into a historically collapsed time-space, in which their self-sacrifice for Irish freedom restored an ancient masculinity capable of exercising self-determination, rejecting anachronistic stereotypes. ¹³

Expanding on existing scholarship, this article argues that An t-Óglách, while a context-specific text, corroborates hegemonic masculinity as a historically shifting concept, operating within spatially and temporally relevant gender hierarchies as a tool of legitimation. Analysing An t-Óglách as a communication community, it becomes clear that one model of masculinity was conferred legitimacy over others. An t-Óglách also provided its readership with the relevant script needed to perform its model of masculinity. An t-Óglách as a communication community thus cannot only be defined ‘simply in terms of a shared set of norms, but by shared engagement in the mechanism through which individuals were socialised into particular sets of norms, values and expectations’. ¹⁴ Set against the backdrop of civil war and the contested formation of the National Army, An t-Óglách became a mechanism by which gendered performances were imbued with authority and signalled as normative within a specific community thus conferring validity on the National Army.

An t-Óglách

During the War of Independence (1919–1921), An t-Óglách was produced by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In its War of Independence issues, An t-Óglách upheld the IRA as the paradigm of hegemonic masculinity. Attempting to legitimate the IRA's guerrilla campaign against British rule, this model of masculinity promoted by the journal strategically embraced Irish parochialism while appropriating British conflations of national progress with masculine traits such as martial prowess, strength, and self-discipline. Urging Volunteers to engage in a public performance of physical force nationalism, An t-Óglách declared Volunteers’ ‘willingness to die for Ireland had proven that their nation was also capable of exercising sovereignty’. ¹⁵ Cultural nationalism further constituted a performance of masculinity, with language and sport reinforcing ‘an ancient masculinity that would be created in the future as a means of escaping the degraded present of Irish statelessness under British colonial rule’. ¹⁶ Men who were reluctant to die for Ireland and did not partake in cultural nationalism, were thus actively working against Irish freedom and therefore, according to the journal, less masculine. ¹⁷

During its Civil War run, An t-Óglách continued to publish general military information, cultural interests, and propaganda, but re-constructed its model of hegemonic masculinity. Illustrating the historicity and shifting nature of masculinities, the distribution and consumption of An t-Óglách during the Civil War functioned as a ‘process by which the performance of a particular masculinity [was] accorded recognition’. ¹⁸ Operating as a communication community, the journal re-socialised its audience to identify service with the National Army as the standard of masculinity. An t-Óglách's editor, Major General Piaras Béaslaí, alongside Colonel Jeremiah ‘Ginger’ O’Connell, Commandant William J. Brennan-Whitmore, and various other military personnel, penned articles upholding this new model of masculinity. Readers who wrote into the journal also engaged in this re-socialisation, validating the National Army as embodying the Irish masculine ideal by providing examples of journal-approved behaviours and norms they performed. ¹⁹ Editorial, military, and civilian communication thus allowed for the journal to work as a mechanism of legitimation for the National Army, especially in its nascency.

Civil War, 1922–1923

Ending the War of Independence, the Anglo-Irish Treaty resulted in the Irish Civil War, which fractured the republican movement. During the Civil War, each side labelled the other as ‘un-Irish’. Anti-Treatyites argued that the Irish Free State, which was created by the treaty in December 1921 and formally ratified as a dominion of the British Empire in January 1922, was a puppet government of Britain and pro-Treatyites were betraying the cause of Irish freedom. Moreover, the new pro-Treaty National Army, created in February 1922 as the army of the Free State, was accused by anti-Treatyites as ‘preventing Ireland from separating from England as a free and independent Republic’. ²⁰ While anti-Treaty forces were constituted by the core IRA units active during the War of Independence, the National Army was a hastily organised amalgamation of former IRA men, Irish men with British Army experience, and British Army officers. ²¹ During the initial stages of civil conflict in Dublin, the National Army used British loaned artillery equipment against the anti-Treaty IRA stationed in the Four Courts. ²² Anti-Treatyites used the National Army's demographic composition and its weaponry as proof of its British leanings.

Anti-Treaty discourse thus challenged pro-Treaty masculinity, exposing the gender hierarchies at work in Ireland during the revolutionary period. Anti-Treaty rhetoric depicted pro-Treaty men as effeminate West Britons who favoured British rule over Irish independence. ²³ Placing pro-Treaty men within a subordinate category of masculinity, anti-Treatyites deemed ‘former comrades who accepted the treaty [as] unprincipled apostates and “sell-outs”, the Free State itself [being] merely a British puppet regime, and support for the new government result[ing] from materialism, fear, “slave-mindedness”, a pro-English outlook, and weak national principles’. ²⁴ Under the pro-Treaty editorial guidance of Béaslaí, An t-Óglách's post-Treaty construction of masculinity therefore attempted to reinforce the National Army as ‘an Army that embodies all that is best, bravest, most intelligent and effective in the young manhood of Ireland’. ²⁵ Refashioning its definition of hegemonic masculinity into a defensive apologia to refute anti-Treaty claims, An t-Óglách intertwined British standards with Irish physical force and cultural nationalism to legitimate the National Army.

Militarism and the National Army

The Free State was understood by its supporters to provide Ireland with internal self-determination. Conceding that Ireland had proved herself worthy of a modern, European-styled self-government, pro-Treatyites ‘believed that dominion status placed the Irish state on an equal footing with other people of the Commonwealth’. ²⁶ Moreover, pro-Treatyites argued that even though the Anglo-Irish Treaty was narrowly ratified in the Dáil Éireann in January of 1922, the poor results for anti-Treaty candidates during the 1922 General Election, confirmed ‘the election as giving a clear mandate to implement the Treaty’. ²⁷ An t-Óglách consequently considered ‘resistance to the Free State as a form of militaristic despotism against the freedoms and rights of the majority’. ²⁸ Emphasising that the anti-Treaty IRA were acting ‘exactly [as] the English did in Ireland’, An t-Óglách justified the National Army's military campaign against the anti-Treaty IRA as a performance of masculinity in defence of Irish liberty and the will of the Irish people. ²⁹

An t-Óglách placed the National Army within an ahistorical nationalist timeframe which helped to present the National Army as more masculine than their opponents, the anti-Treaty IRA. ³⁰ Associating military prowess and defence of the Irish nation with masculinity, An t-Óglách recalled examples from nationalist history to make a direct connection between the ancient Irish race and the National Army. Grand heroic legends, such as Cuchulainn and the Fianna, provided this lineage for the National Army. ³¹ Establishing a thread of authenticity, however much imagined and invented, between the National Army and the masculinised and militant Irishmen of Ireland's sovereign, ancient past, An t-Óglách conferred onto the National Army, and its defence of the Free State, a historical legitimacy. Positioning its campaign against the anti-Treaty IRA as a continuation of Ireland's historic tradition of defending Irish liberty, pro-Treaty men were exalted into the nationalist pantheon of martyrs whose self-sacrifice had advanced Irish liberation.

An t-Óglách also connected the National Army to the Irish Volunteers. Stating that ‘[the National Army] should look upon its tradition as a sacred and holy thing … baptised by the blood of its first martyrs’, An t-Óglách argued that the National Army's campaign was a legitimate enterprise, a continuation of the campaigns of the 1916 Irish Volunteers and the War of Independence IRA. ³² The journal claimed ‘there has been no real break in the historic continuity between the force established in 1913 “to safeguard the rights and liberties of the whole people of Ireland”, and the present National Army … the high ideals which inspired the men of those early days should guide our conduct and proceedings now’. ³³ An t-Óglách thus looked to position the National Army as the rightful successors of the Volunteers, noting that pro-Treatyites’ sacrifices during the Civil War, parallel to the sacrifices of the Volunteers and IRA, demonstrated that pro-Treatyites were not guided by Anglophilic predilections but by heroic defence of the Irish nation.

Moreover, An t-Óglách appropriated British stereotypes, fashioning anti-Treatyites into an inferior group of effeminate men in comparison to the Free State soldiers’ masculinity. In accordance with various other Free State media outlets such as the Free State and Freeman's Journal, An t-Óglách depicted anti-Treatyites ‘as youthful opportunists engaged in hooliganism rather than revolution’. ³⁴ Inverting historic British stereotypes of the Irish as impoverished and weak, begging for the paternal guiding hand of British governance, anti-Treatyites were constructed as atavistic, rural, lower-class, and politically inept juveniles. An t-Óglách argued that the National Army's military campaign was consequently in part comprised of policing the infantile ‘crimes of violence [which] are unfortunately all too rife in certain parts of the country’, instigated by the anti-Treaty IRA's juvenile delinquency. ³⁵ In addition to emasculating anti-Treatyites by deeming their campaign as ‘youthful license under the cover of politics’ infringing upon the democratic expression of the Irish people, An t-Óglách equated anti-Treaty IRA aggression with British oppression. ³⁶

An t-Óglách continued to depict the anti-Treaty IRA as antagonistic to masculinity by appropriating hypermasculine rhetoric. British newspapers frequently illustrated Irish nationalists as primitive, volatile criminals. British simianisation of the Irish as ‘dark, heavy-jawed criminals, semibeastial apemen, or even outright inhuman monsters’, was refashioned by An t-Óglách to underline anti-Treatyites’ military campaign as reminiscent of British rule in Ireland. ³⁷ Until the end of the Civil War, An t-Óglách illustrated the anti-Treaty IRA as ‘a section of volunteers [who] have proceeded to suppress the rights of the people and tread the same path as the English did’. ³⁸ Arguing that the anti-Treaty IRA was ‘expound[ing] democracy through the medium of an automatic’, ³⁹ and employing ‘warfare – more adequately described as murder – upon the nation’, An t-Óglách stated that debased anti-Treatyites represented violent savagery, ‘put[ing] themselves outside the pale of civilised warfare by the use of weapons which, for viciousness and cruelty, make poison-gas and the flammenwerefer comparatively humane implements of war’. ⁴⁰ Due to the anti-Treaty IRA's rejection of the Free State and its ‘English-styled’ brutality, An t-Óglách's Anglicisation of anti-Treatyites consequently located anti-Treaty men outside the ‘atemporal zone of manly Irish nationalism’ and within a subordinate masculine category. ⁴¹

An t-Óglách appropriated British discourse to negate anti-Treaty claims that pro-Treaty troops were less masculine. While the National Army was ‘fighting for the nation's life’, the journal claimed, ‘… there are the most unmistakable signs of rapid improvement in organisation and discipline’. ⁴² Evoking British military discourse, the journal linked ‘discipline and battlefield success’ with physical culture. ⁴³ The National Army's masculinity was therefore in-part built through physical training, with drill specifically moulding the collective and individual body in ‘the development of discipline and courage’. ⁴⁴ In order to become ‘the very best of [the] nation's manhood [who fought] in the vanguard in the war against England’, worthy of its lineage and superior position to the anti-Treaty IRA, An t-Óglách encouraged the cultivation of discipline through physical training. ⁴⁵ Paradoxically quoting British Army officer, Stephen Graham, ‘a strong discipline … is the foundation of heroic exploits in the field’, the journal stated that discipline helped soldiers ‘to discharge the duty which they have been called upon to perform’, claiming that disciplined male bodies defended Irish liberty. ⁴⁶

Irish-Ireland and the National Army

An t-Óglách used the National Army's engagement in cultural nationalism during the Civil War and its immediate aftermath as proof of the army's hegemonic masculinity. Anti-Treatyites attempted to expose the Free State as a nucleus of shoneenism, arguing pro-Treatyites were ‘simply aping their British allies and masters’. ⁴⁷ Counteracting claims of pro-Treaty men as West Britons, shoneens and Castle Catholics, An t-Óglách highlighted the National Army's participation in the Irish-Ireland Movement, particularly in its language revival, festivals and dances, and industrialisation. Further, reflecting the movement's ‘hybrid ideology composed of both assimilative and separatist traditions’, An t-Óglách's promotion of the army's cultural engagement resembled Dublin Castle's Anglicisation of Ireland. ⁴⁸ Nevertheless, the advertisement of Irish-Ireland in An t-Óglách's pages was not only used to endorse the National Army as a legitimately Irish institution, but to endow Free State soldiers with cultural validation.

Due to its broad cultural inclusion, the Irish-Ireland Movement was a crucial component of An t-Óglách's model of masculinity. The Irish-Ireland Movement, developing from the Gaelic Revival and emulating many Victorian values, was ‘dedicated to reforming the national character in an effort to imbue the Irish people with moral and intellectual competencies judged to be required of a mature, stable, self-governing community’. ⁴⁹ Its focus on Irish culture was deemed by An t-Óglách to assist the National Army in becoming ‘thoroughly national in every sense of the term’. ⁵⁰ The National Army's engagement in the movement, was, however, not only a visible engagement in Gaelic culture, but a specific engagement in the revival of the Irish language. Reprinting the mid-nineteenth-century words of nationalist Thomas Davis, ‘a people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories – ‘tis a surer barrier, a more important frontier, than fortress or river’, An t-Óglách upheld the idea that linguistic revival was linked to protecting the nation. ⁵¹

Learning and speaking Irish could position members of the National Army as championing Irish autonomy. Following the Free State's 1922 constitution's legalisation of Irish as a national language, ⁵² An t-Óglách underlined the importance of soldiers becoming well versed in Irish in order to build ‘[the] Gaelic state which will express the highest ideals of our race in concrete form’. ⁵³ Stating it was soldiers’ duty ‘to speak the Gaelic tongue where possible’, ⁵⁴ An t-Óglách reiterated pre-conflict discourse which theorised that linguistic revival would end the emasculation of Ireland. ⁵⁵ An t-Óglách thus encouraged soldiers to attend language classes. Commenting ‘the opportunities now afforded will be availed of by all who are desirous of acquiring a working knowledge of the National Language’, An t-Óglách inferred that soldiers committed to linguistic revival were both asserting their masculinity and collectively advancing Irish sovereignty. ⁵⁶ An t-Óglách consequently claimed that ‘steps are being taken to improve the National Language in the every-day life of the army’ with soldiers who joined Irish classes regarded as ‘saving the life of the nation’. ⁵⁷

Focusing on the National Army's engagement in the revival of Irish, An t-Óglách highlighted the National Army's language department, Fáinne na n-Óglách. Created to oversee the development of Irish in the National Army, An t-Óglách asserted that Fáinne na n-Óglách ‘should take the necessary steps to ensure that Irish, as much as possible, should enter the work of the Army’, continuing, ‘the Army being one of the foremost arms of the Government it must be seen to by all who are in a position to do so, that the Army will be foremost in its use of the Language’. ⁵⁸ An t-Óglách thus underlined that Fáinne na n-Óglách's existence reinforced the National Army as a vanguard of the linguistic revival, asserting ‘who are better fitted to revive the language … than her own sons, “The Army of Ireland?” The men who released her from bondage are the men for the work’. ⁵⁹ An t-Óglách therefore contended that the restoration of Irish was of prime importance to the National Army, adapting cultural nationalist rhetoric to underline soldiers’ participation in internal Irish classes as a ‘manly and patriotic duty’. ⁶⁰

An t-Óglách also argued that cultural engagement extended beyond the walls of the Irish classroom. Popular culture in Ireland pre-conflict ‘was largely derivative of English popular culture’, perpetuating, like the 1902 play Sleeping Beauty, pro-British rhetoric to secure Britain's socio-cultural hold in Ireland. ⁶¹ The journal consequently reassured readers that ‘the [Free State] seeks to be national, racy of the soil, adapting itself to the modern world and ancient conditions, but proudly retaining all that is valuable of our past, our national language, sports, music, customs, traditions’. ⁶² Therefore, soldiers in the Curragh who spent ‘half an hour learning Gaelic songs and dances’, ⁶³ were also expected to attend ‘the Feiseanna and Aerideachta and other Gaelic functions’. ⁶⁴ An t-Óglách even endorsed participation in Samhain celebrations, deeming that ‘no seasonable entertainments could be more worthy of the support of both the military and civilian population than the concert, ceilidh and dance organised by the Fainne’. ⁶⁵ This specific discourse was intended to reassure An t-Óglách's readership that the army was immersed in all aspects of the Irish-Ireland Movement, contradicting anti-Treaty claims of the army embracing British culture.

Moreover, An t-Óglách's conception of masculinity held class connotations. Demonstrated by the journal's support of the Irish industrial movement, An t-Óglách's normative model of masculinity equated it with middle-class values. An t-Óglách posited that participation in the revitalisation of native industries refuted anti-Treaty claims of pro-Treaty men as ‘Greedy Anglophile Capitalists’ and ‘old Tory Landlords’. ⁶⁶ The journal encouraged its military and civilian readership to ‘support Irish manufacture and Ireland's industries not import and support with pride John Bull's foreign stuff’, ⁶⁷ continuing,

our struggle for national independence really begins with the material advancement of our country. Given the free chance of developing, Ireland will be one of the richest countries in Europe within a very short time. There is danger that her national aspirations will be swallowed up by her prosperity. In guarding against that, lies our patriotic duty. ⁶⁸

An t-Óglách communicated to its audience that the National Army was aiding native industrialisation. However, because industrialisation was largely associated with the ‘middle-class, large farmers, merchants, employers, “big business”, professional classes, and the remnants of the Anglo-Irish gentry’, the journal's model of masculinity was unintentionally perceived as tied to these groups. ⁶⁹ An t-Óglách's insertion of adverts further suggested that large-scale production and consumption of Irish commodities was a performance of its preferred form of masculinity. The insertion of adverts to encourage its readership to buy civilian and military goods linked a specific form of consumerism to masculinity and the advancement of economic prosperity in the Free State.

An t-Óglách's discussion of the Irish-Ireland Movement was complex. Appropriating British connections between language and national power, An t-Óglách promoted the National Army's involvement in linguistic revival as reinforcing the masculine sovereignty of Free State rule. ⁷⁰ Eschewing notions of Anglophilia, An t-Óglách also promoted engagement in Gaelic festivals and dance. Much like English entertainment in Ireland, which was used to perpetuate Anglicisation, the journal highlighted the cultural pastimes of the National Army to underline its origins in Gaelic-Catholic identity. ⁷¹ Moreover, Ireland's pre-conflict under-industrialisation was reflective of its periphery/core character and ‘Britain's deepening political, administrative and economic exploitation’ of Ireland, bolstering Irish dependence on the British economy. ⁷² Mirroring the British government's economic use of Ireland for political ends, An t-Óglách's discussion of industrialisation underpinned the journal's understanding of masculinities as rooted within class, equating masculinity with the economic policies and control of the Free State by wealthy and propertied pro-Treatyites.

Gaelic Sport and the National Army

An t-Óglách also presented participation in sport as a performance of masculinity, using the National Army's engagement in sport to defend pro-Treaty men as athletically cultivated Irishmen. While An t-Óglách underlined physical culture's ability to improve soldiers’ health, physique, and discipline, this section focuses on An t-Óglách's preoccupation with sport, particularly the National Army's own sporting organisation, the Army Athletic Association (AAA). ⁷³ Declaring to its readership that, ‘the day was not far distant when the Army would have a big sports day in Dublin, in which they would have an opportunity of showing their prowess in the field of Gaelic sport’, ⁷⁴ An t-Óglách counteracted anti-Treaty claims of pro-Treatyites as effeminate Anglophiles, and the National Army ‘a site of rampant shoneenism’. ⁷⁵ Discourses around participation in sport mirrored those in Britain, but the focus on Gaelic sports and soldiers’ participation in AAA sport was used to further confer cultural legitimacy onto the National Army.

During the final months of the Civil War, the National Army created an internal sporting organisation, the AAA. Continuing the late-nineteenth century Gaelic Athletic Association's (GAA) discourse, the AAA posited that Irish games produced strong, disciplined, and self-controlled male bodies. While the GAA sought to counteract Victorian stereotypes of the Irish as ‘simians, drunken ruffians or effeminate, child-like inferiors in need of Anglo-Saxon domination’, An t-Óglách looked to use Gaelic games to create a model of hegemonic masculinity oppositional to anti-Treaty accusations. ⁷⁶ An t-Óglách stated that the impetus for the AAA resulted from different army units forming hurling and Gaelic football teams and organising boxing tournaments on their own initiative. ⁷⁷ Once created, the AAA's ‘scheme of organisation’ dictated that only men enrolled in the National Army were eligible for membership and could only participate in approved sport. The ‘scheme of organisation’ further outlined the breakdown of teams and plans for inter-company, battalion, and command championships. ⁷⁸ The AAA's existence was thus claimed by An t-Óglách to bolster the National Army as a force developing along Gaelic lines, asserting that the AAA placed the National Army in a dominant cultural position.

The AAA's focus on traditional Gaelic games was used by An t-Óglách to connect Free State soldiers to a historical athleticism. An t-Óglách declared sport was a formative aspect of Irish masculinity prior to conflict, ‘a tradition that is as old and as glorious as that of the Olympic games. The Greek ideal of a sound mind in a sound body was paralleled in ancient Ireland. Here, too, we find that great warriors of the past were also great athletes’. ⁷⁹ Similar to GAA rhetoric that Gaelic sports were ‘traditional games of the Irish nation and a race with a long and glorious history’, engagement in AAA sport connected the National Army to a long-held tradition of Irish athleticism. ⁸⁰ An t-Óglách's emphasis on the antiquity of Gaelic sports not only provided a teleological legitimacy for Irish nationhood, but for its construction of masculinity. Within this atemporal space, An t-Óglách recalled a historicised athletic masculinity, one that was simultaneously Irish and rejected the notion that the National Army ‘ape[d] the mannerisms of the relicts of the [British] garrison’. ⁸¹

An t-Óglách's push for engagement in Gaelic sports encouraged members of the National Army to participate in Gaelic sports as a projection of masculinity while actively discouraging participation in British sports. Referring to the AAA's rejection of ‘un-Irish’ sports, An t-Óglách stated that ‘if we are to have Eire as we would wish her, then we must revive our Gaelic culture, and we cannot do that by persisting in playing foreign games’. ⁸² British sports, such as cricket, rugby, and soccer, consequently ‘raised a question of especial importance for the Army’. ⁸³ These sports were believed ‘to foster the manliness which an Empire needed to prosper’ and instil Protestant moral conduct. ⁸⁴ Such athletically cultivated physical strength and pious morality fashioned for imperial achievement was to be avoided. Thus, echoing the GAA's endeavour to ‘remove in one sweep everything foreign and iniquitous in the present system’, An t-Óglách underlined that the existence of the AAA contradicted anti-Treaty claims of pro-Treatyites’ penchant for British sports. ⁸⁵

Athletic engagement in Irish sport, particularly hurling and Gaelic football, was promoted by An t-Óglách as performative acts which cultivated qualities foundational to its model of hegemonic masculinity. An t-Óglách commented Gaelic sports were ‘conduc[ive] to manly ideas, moral lives, regular habits, and moderation with regard to eating and drinking. By engendering respect and care for the body they help to counteract self-indulgence, excess and bad habits, which are destructive alike to character, body and mind’. ⁸⁶ In regard to hurling, the journal stated, ‘it is difficult to imagine a pastime more admirably fitted to a soldier's physical and mental equipment than our National game of Hurling’, whereas Gaelic football was promoted as a ‘game for “a man” – requiring speed, pluck and resource’. ⁸⁷ Hurling and Gaelic football thus ‘inculcated and cultivated … coveted values’ which upheld the National Army in opposition to the juvenile delinquency and hypermasculinity linked to anti-Treatyites. ⁸⁸ However, to further its discourse that Irish sport fostered preferred masculine qualities, An t-Óglách appropriated British ideas of refinement and codification.

The GAA sought to refute British stereotypes of Irishmen as uncivilised, aggressive, and brutish by refining and codifying Gaelic sports. Gaelic sports were more violent and intense then contemporary English sports and the refinement of play and codification of rules would provide Gaelic sports with a ‘civilizing tendency [imposing] on the individual team ideas of organization, discipline, and control’. ⁸⁹ A series of rule changes such as the reduction of on-pitch players, the ability to move freely on the pitch, and the opportunity to produce higher scoring games, increased the entertainment value for players and spectators of games such as hurling and Gaelic football. The introduction of such rules also allowed Gaelic sports to maintain ‘its devotion to physical combat but became more accommodating of the idea of skilful play’. ⁹⁰ This modernisation of Gaelic sports through Victorian-inspired refinement and codification was expected to civilise Irishmen, replacing the violence endemic to Gaelic sports with ‘order and virtuous manliness’. ⁹¹

An t-Óglách thus declared that the AAA's proposed further refinement and codification of Gaelic sports would reinforce Free State soldiers as modern and disciplined Irishmen. In line with the GAA's refinement and codification, An t-Óglách reasoned that the AAA would improve the ‘discipline and control of violent impulses’, still prevalent in certain Gaelic sports, specifically Gaelic football. ⁹² Although the journal did not intend to change Gaelic football's foundational rules, it highlighted ‘the invaluable assistance the Army programme [would] give to Gaelic games’. ⁹³ Emphasising the AAA's ability to transform ‘untoward horseplay’ into more modern and civilised play, An t-Óglách suggested that AAA refinement and codification would advance the manly, disciplined violence initially fashioned by the GAA's turn-of-the-century refinement and codification. ⁹⁴ Referring to Gaelic football, the journal noted ‘dangerous play must be cut out … charging a man when he has delivered the ball, and is more or less unprotected, must not be tolerated’. ⁹⁵ By eliminating such aggressive play from Gaelic football, the AAA's projected refinement and codification of Gaelic sports was presented to the journal's readers as evidence of Free State soldiers’ masculine behaviour, and the National Army as an institution of civilised Irishmen.

An t-Óglách's proposal that AAA refinement and codification produced disciplined, yet muscular and robust men, led to a discussion of British-influenced scientific play. By focusing on an athletically cultivated ‘skill, science, speed and stamina’ instead of the unruly violence of pre-GAA Irish sport or the effeminacy of British sports like cricket, An t-Óglách posited that AAA engagement transformed National Army members into modern, European men. ⁹⁶ Depicting AAA matches and competitions as producing an athleticism consistent with intellectual and entertaining play, An t-Óglách signalled Free State soldiers as paragons of masculinity:

In the series of brilliant games at Tipperary, Cork and Dublin, between Kerry, Kildare and Louth, there was no dangerous play. The game was, as played then, a magnificent one. Every player played the ball. There were strenuous but scrupulously fair tests of strength and virility – grand fielding, passing and swinging movements which had the spectators on their toes right through the hour. This is what we must have again, and the Army can re-create this grand sporting spirit … Playing Gaelic football and hurling as they should be played, the Army competitions will have a healthy tonic and moral effect outside its influence. ⁹⁷

Emphasising the AAA's fostering of scientific play, An t-Óglách underlined such play as producing intelligent, energetic, and progressive men who represented the Free State's future. The technical evolution of play rejected notions of economic backwardness, deprivation, and political subjugation in favour of an advanced and modern European nation.

Moreover, An t-Óglách used Muscular Catholicism as a defensive rebuttal to anti-Treaty accusations. Building on the rhetoric of pre-conflict Muscular Catholicism which saw Gaelic sports ‘as antidotes to the sickly national body,’ emaciated by the Great Famine and British rule, An t-Óglách argued that the AAA's focus on Gaelic sports repudiated pro-Treaty men as weak, effeminate Anglophiles working for the British government. ⁹⁸ An t-Óglách posited that a ‘healthy mind in [a] healthy body’, cultivated through AAA sport fashioned Free State soldiers into models of normative masculinity. ⁹⁹ Commenting ‘plenty of wholesome food, plenty of fresh air and exercise, with eight hours’ sleep daily; strict moderation in alcohol and nicotine… these are the essentials on which athletic vigour with surprising reserve power is usually built’, ¹⁰⁰ An t-Óglách echoed the idea that ‘weekly display of healthy, muscular and vigorous male bodies’ ¹⁰¹ would aid in the ‘de-Anglicisation’ of Ireland, arguing that the National Army's engagement in AAA sport ‘de-Anglicised’ Free State soldiers and upheld the army as an Irish Army.

An t-Óglách's discourse regarding sport was largely derivative of British ideas. While An t-Óglách adapted British rhetoric to fit the context of post-independence Ireland, An t-Óglách equated athletic prowess with national strength. In mid-nineteenth-century England, sport was believed to provide young men with a ‘training in manliness’, cultivating qualities needed for imperial expansion. ¹⁰² The idea that sport shaped the ideal man, able to defend the British Empire when called upon, was pervasive. It instilled discipline, self-sacrifice, and teamwork, ensuring the individual ‘doesn't play that he may win but that his side may win’. ¹⁰³ In this vein, AAA sport not only provided a sense of Irishness for the National Army, but inculcated the masculine qualities necessary for the defence of the Free State. Participation in Gaelic sports therefore simultaneously represented the National Army as a significant cultural institution while emphasising the strength of the National Army and its position in safeguarding the new Irish state.

Conclusion

During the Civil War and its immediate aftermath, An t-Óglách adapted its discourse to fit the new political milieu in which it now operated. No longer publishing in secret and incurring the ‘wrath of the British government’, An t-Óglách was openly distributed to soldiers, and the civilian population after June 1922. ¹⁰⁴ Writing that the goal of the journal during its 1922–23 production was ‘to hearten and encourage the soldiers of Ireland in the more unpleasant task they have to perform – to protect the rights and liberties of the Irish nation, not from foreign, but from domestic aggression’, An t-Óglách reconstructed its hierarchy of masculinities to legitimate the existence of the National Army. ¹⁰⁵ Delineating normative behaviour as conducive with pro-Treaty military labour, engagement in the Irish-Ireland Movement, and participation in army sports, An t-Óglách reordered post-Treaty masculinities to challenge anti-Treaty claims of pro-Treatyites’ English effeminacy. An t-Óglách's construction of masculinity located Free State soldiers as its archetypal model of masculinity, socialising its readership into accepting the National Army as occupying a dominate position within post-independence Irish society.

The Civil War provided a stage on which An t-Óglách could re-define and re-orient hegemonic masculinity. Reiterating that the Free State ‘provided the Irish with one of the finest chances they had ever had to mould the national destiny’, ¹⁰⁶ An t-Óglách's construction of its masculine ideal as analogous to National Army membership reflects Joanna Nagel's claim that ‘the culture and ideology of hegemonic masculinity go hand in hand with the culture and ideology of hegemonic nationalism’. ¹⁰⁷ Promoting the National Army as a legitimate organisation, An t-Óglách depicted the army's campaign against the anti-Treaty IRA, involvement in language, festivals, industry, and Gaelic sports as ‘an assertion of male authority and an apologia for such authority as morally legitimate and conducive to the welfare of the whole community’. ¹⁰⁸ Equating masculinity with Free State soldiers, An t-Óglách delineated normative behaviours as synchronous with the military and cultural acts performed by the National Army, and subordinate masculinities represented by anti-Treatyites and their antagonism towards the Free State.

An t-Óglách's definition of hegemonic masculinity, however, appropriated British discourse. An t-Óglách argued anti-Treatyites’ rejection of the Free State and advocacy for a military dictatorship revealed their ‘un-Irishness’. Underlining the anti-Treaty IRA as ‘lazy, feckless individuals…who fell below prevailing standards of propriety and respectability’, calling them ‘a much lower and brutal type’, ‘lesser evolved humanity’, and ‘little short of savages’, who threatened the democratic will of the Irish people, An t-Óglách underlined the National Army's suppression of the anti-Treaty IRA as normative behaviour conducive with masculinity. ¹⁰⁹ Moreover, An t-Óglách's discussion of the Irish-Ireland Movement replicated British ideas of imperial dominance. An t-Óglách's focus on language, social pastimes, and industry to corroborate pro-Treaty hegemony, employed similar techniques used to enforce English cultural and economic control. An t-Óglách's discussion of sport, echoing the GAA's ‘nationalist reaction against English influence and [appropriation] of the athletic revolution which had been pioneered by the British’, mirrored British sporting ethos to reject claims of Anglophilic emasculation. ¹¹⁰

An t-Óglách provides new insights on gender and the Irish revolution. Bypassing its surface function as an instructional tool and propaganda outlet, this article shows the value of An t-Óglách for analysing masculinities in the Free State. Appealing to its civilian and military readership, An t-Óglách constructed a model of hegemonic masculinity intended to substantiate the National Army's position in the Free State and counteract anti-Treaty accusations. An t-Óglách's gendered discourse also simultaneously rejected and appropriated British standards. While Irish nationalists looked to separate Ireland from Britain, An t-Óglách's acquiescence of British standards reveals the pervasiveness of British ideas as the standard in which nations within the British Empire looking to hold a legitimate, politically adept, masculinity had to adhere. Moreover, a gendered analysis of An t-Óglách as a communication community not only illustrates the complex construction of hegemonic masculinity, but the plurality of masculinities, the ordering of masculinities, and the historical transformations masculinities were subjected to during the revolution in order to confer authority upon a specific collective of men.