Marguerite Moore

Abstract

From the United Irishmen to Sinn Féin, the transatlantic agitator has featured regularly in histories of Irish nationalism, but is generally considered in male terms. Marguerite Moore’s story takes us to more unfamiliar terrain, to a life of disrupted gender expectations and activity in a range of progressive causes. As a member of the Ladies’ Land League, Moore traveled throughout Ireland, Scotland, and England, where she established new branches of the league and integrated the organization across the Irish Sea. In the aftermath of the Land War, she emigrated to New York and became active in Henry George’s single tax movement, feminism, and labor reform. She remained politically active into the twentieth century and represented an intergenerational link between the Ladies’ Land League and Cumann na mBan in the revolutionary years of 1912–23. The history of the Ladies’ Land League is most often told from the perspective of its leader, Anna Parnell. Moore’s history presents an alternative view, where the progressive alliances forged during the Land War were sustained in subsequent years.