‘The Rebels Turkish Tyranny’: Understanding Sexual Violence in Ireland during the 1640s

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Hall, Dianne ORCID: 0000-0002-2303-8226 and Malcolm, E (2010) ‘The Rebels Turkish Tyranny’: Understanding Sexual Violence in Ireland during the 1640s. Gender and History, 22 (1). pp. 55-74. ISSN 0953-5233

Abstract

This article analyses gendered violence both in the testimonies of English Protestant settlers displaced during the 1641 Irish rebellion and in the pamphlets written shortly afterwards. It argues that, given the settlers’ anxiety to highlight their vulnerability and innocence in the face of perceived native Irish barbarism, sexual violence with its suggestions of possible female acquiescence or complicity had an insecure place in their testimonies. Yet contemporary pamphlet writers described the rape of Protestant women as widespread and indiscriminate, using such narratives to question the masculinity of Catholic Irish men. By investigating personal testimonies of the sexual violence suffered by women, as well as the subsequent use of such information in narratives sensationalising the ordeal of Protestants in Ireland in 1641, the complex meanings attached to sexual violence during the mid-seventeenth century can be better appreciated.

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Item type Article
URI https://vuir.vu.edu.au/id/eprint/7815
DOI 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01578.x
Official URL http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-...
Subjects Historical > FOR Classification > 2103 Historical Studies
Historical > Faculty/School/Research Centre/Department > School of Social Sciences and Psychology
Keywords ResPubID22430, Irish rebellion, sexual violence, 1641
Citations in Scopus 19 - View on Scopus
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