The Belfast Boycott: consumerism and gender in revolutionary Ireland (1920–1922)

Abstract

The Belfast Boycott was a protest designed to dislodge loyalism in Northern Ireland, punish its adherents for perceived intolerance toward Catholics and end Irish partition. The boycott was set off by the expulsion of several thousand Catholic workers from employment in Belfast in July 1920. A total boycott of all goods coming from Belfast was implemented by the Dáil in September 1920. Boycotting provided Irish nationalists with an alternative to violent retaliation that allowed for the participation of a wider segment of the Irish population and diaspora in the revolutionary movement. However, such mass mobilisation meant that nationalists had to entrust their plan for an independent Ireland to a segment of the population that they overwhelmingly viewed as politically and economically uninformed: Irish women. The boycott offers a new vantage point from which to view the actions of and attitudes towards women and the role of mass mobilisation during the revolution. This article explores nationalists’ conceptions of Irish identity, the intersection between consumerism and patriotism, and the role that women played as both political and economic actors throughout the Irish revolutionary period.