‘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.