'Why, it's like Belgium!': the Women's International League in the Irish War of Independence 1919-1921

This article demonstrates how the Women's International League (WIL) dealt with the changing ideas of nationhood, internationalism, imperialism, and freedom when supporting the cause of Irish independence. Their actions included seeking to protect Britain's good name while simultaneously criticising that very same nation for its war in Ireland. The 'small nations' rhetoric that had emerged during the First World War was used by British feminists to divorce the atrocities of the British Crown force, the Black and Tans, from the wider colonial experience of oppression. Comparing the occupation of Ireland in 1919-1921 to that of Belgium during the First World War enabled British internationalist-feminists to support the sovereignty of Ireland's nationhood, without necessarily having to engage with the colonial dimension or history of the conflict. This entirely changed the parameters within which British feminists could show solidarity with the Irish republicans while still maintaining positive views of British imperialism and the empire.