‘A double claim to be consulted’: the Pankhurst sisters’ newspaper coverage of Ireland, 1912–18

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Irish question and women’s suffrage were two noteworthy topics of debate in Britain and Ireland in the period surrounding the Great War. Both questions challenged British constitutional politics, split opinion, and prompted newspaper coverage. This article is interested in the debates as they occurred in Britain. Through a case study of two British suffrage newspapers, The Suffragette/Britannia (1912–18) and The Woman’s Dreadnought/The Workers’ Dreadnought (1914–24), edited respectively by Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, this article investigates how British suffrage press reported on Ireland. It asks: how did British suffrage press coverage of the Irish question develop throughout 1912–18? It argues The Suffragette/Britannia and The Woman’s Dreadnought/The Workers’ Dreadnought are useful representations of the Pankhurst sisters’ diverging political opinion, which also evoked wider women’s suffrage themes, and how the Great War and immediate post-war period shaped and interacted with the competing political priorities of women’s suffrage and the Irish question.