Alice Stopford Green was an Irish historian known for her work promoting Irish nationalism and African causes in the late 19th/early 20th century. Through her marriage to historian J.R. Green, she built a large network of influential intellectuals and activists. She established organizations like the African Society and Journal of the African Society to advocate for Ireland and Africa. Green wrote many books on Irish history and was influential in the Gaelic revival movement. She financially supported nationalist causes in Ireland, including the Howth gun-running operation of 1914. Though initially opposing women's suffrage, Green saw women as able to influence politics through other means like philanthropy and social reform.

1. Alice
Stopford
Green:
HiGH prieSteSS
of tHe
iriSH
revolution
limerick
city
librAry

2. Overview: Links and Intersections
as historian.
as woman.
as African activist / philanthropy
as Irish nationalist
problematic position within Irish history.

3. Background / Context
• b. 1847 into a Protestant family in Kells
• Seventh child of Archdeacon Edward
Stopford.
• Access to her father’s library taught herself
Greek, German and metaphysics.
• Aged 16 she went temporarily blind.
Attended lectures in the College of Sciences
in Dublin.

5. John Richard Green 1837-1883
• In 1877 Alice married
the Oxford historian
John Richard Green
and became her
husband’s research
assistant until his death
in 1883.

6. A short history of the English people (1874)
• First social and cultural
history of England.
• 32,000 copies sold in
the first year.
• Influential throughout
British Empire and
America.

7. Professionalization of History
• J.R. Green was a co-
founder with James Bryce
of the English Historical
Review.
• Professionalization of
history can be considered
as an example of how
knowledge was supplanting
power at end of 19th
c.

8. Alice Green’s Network
• As a result of her marriage Alice meets many
leading historians and intellectuals of her
day.
• Gained reputation as an intellectual and
robust conversationalist.
• Her home became a meeting place for
scholars, politicians, social and political
activists.

9. An independent historian
• After her husband’s
death Alice writes two
histories as an
independent historian.
• 1888 – Henry II.
• 1894 – Town Life in
the Fifteenth Century.

10. A.S. Green as historian
• Reacted against notions of professional
history capable of scientific methodology.
She saw all history as subjective / political.
• Experimental with sources: considering
landscapes, poetry and song, language etc. as
an important part of historical evidence.

11. The liberal network
• Through her marriage and engagement with
world of letters she built up exceptional
network of influential women and men.
• Networks served this knowledge-power
nexus.

12. Women’s Issues
• Early writings about women:
– ‘Woman’s place in the world of letters’,
Nineteenth Century, 1897, vol. xli, 244, 964-74.
– Times, 19 May 1897, Letter re: University
Degrees for Women
– ‘Growing bureaucracy and parliamentary
decline’, Nineteenth Century, 1900, vol. xlvii,
279, 839-46.

13. Florence
Nightingale

14. Beatrice
Webb

15. Green: an advocate of Women’s Rights?
• 1889 – Green was one of the signatories of
‘Appeal against female suffrage’.
• Why did Green initially oppose suffrage?
• How did she conceptualise woman’s place in
society?

16. Woman’s transcendent role
• Green saw women’s role outside the political
sphere as social reorganisers, as influencing
politics by serving beyond its parameters.
– Her work for Africa and her support for Irish
nationalism became space for realising this
vision.

17. Mary
Kingsley

18. Mary Kingsley & Alice Green
• From 1895-1900 Mary Kingsley and Alice Green
become closely associated and Kingsley inspires
Green’s interest in West Africa.
• Women’s work as philanthropic endeavour.
• Correspondence held in the National Library of
Ireland.

19. Re-presenting Africa
• Pan-African movement
starts in 1900 and various
figures involved in both
ventures namely E.W.
Blyden.
• From African Society
Green encouraged other
campaigners, notably E.D.
Morel & Stephen Gwynn.

20. The African Society
• Green establishes African Society following death
of Kingsley in 1900.
• On the surface it might be understood as a tool of
empire, amassing knowledge on Africa.
Membership inclusive of many professions
associated with Africa.
• Beneath the surface it might be understood as a
seed bed for anti-colonial interactions.

21. Journal of the African Society
• Longest surviving
publication in the West
specializing in African
affairs.
• Catalysed a new
discussion on Africa.
• Transcends political
difference.

22. Changing views on Africa
• Finances the setting up of the West African
Mail.
• Invites African chiefs and elders to London.
• Through Africa she tries to transcend
political impotency.

23. E.D.Morel

24. Roger Casement
to
A.S.Green
24 April 1904:
“the claim
of the Congo people
must appeal to every
sincere and genuine
Irish national: the more
we love our land and
wish to help her people
the more keenly we feel we
cannot turn a deaf ear to
suffering and injustice
in any part of the world.”

25. Alice Green and Irish Nationalism
• Strongly opposed to the Boer War.
• Irish nationalist sympathies encouraged by
her husband, found new impetus through
Gaelic revival and especially Gaelic League
and language renaissance.
• A nation is its past?

26. Speaking Out on Ireland’s behalf
• ‘It has been the object of English instruction
in Ireland to keep the people in ignorance of
their own history. This evil is intensified
when their ignorance is exploited to depress
them yet further by the repetition of
calumnies which have done political service
for centuries …’
– Freeman’s Journal – 11 March 1905

27. Books on the history of Ireland
• The making of Ireland and its undoing 1200-
1600 (1908)
• Irish Nationality (1911)
• The Old Irish World (1912)
• The Government of Ireland (1921)
• The History of the Irish State to 1014 (1925)
• Studies from Irish History (1926)

28. Irish Nationality (1911)
• Most influential work
in moving the mind of
young Ireland since the
essays of Thomas
Davis.
• 28 Feb 1911 Yorkshire
Observer described
Green as the ‘most
important Irish writer
of the day.’

29. Irish activity
• Irish language revival and promotion of
medieval scholarship.
• Historical Polemics (Graveyard at Durrow,
use of Tara by Lord Aberdeen)
• Cumman Na mBan.
• London Committee of the Irish Volunteers.
• Defence of Roger Casement.

30. Vol 1:3,
21 Feb 1914

31. Howth Gun-running
• It was in her home in Grosvenor Road the
decision was taken by Green, Casement,
Childers, Figgis to run guns in to Ireland.
• Green chaired the private committee which
financed the gun-running.
• Royalties from A Short History of the
English People paid for the guns.

32. Molly Childers
&
Mary Spring-Rice
Asgard
July 1914

34. Dedication on the Senate casket
• No real history of Ireland has yet been
written. When the true story is finally
worked out – one not wholly occupied with
the many and insatiable plunderers – it will
give us a noble and reconciling vision of Irish
nationality. Silence and neglect will no longer
hide the fame of honourable men.

35. African Society
Anti-Boer War
Pan-Africanism
Suffrage
Cumann na Ban
Howth gunrunning
Irish Nationalism
Gaelic League
Irish Volunteers
Philanthropy
Congo Reform Assoc.
White Cross Society
Resistance
In
Interaction

36. Why is Green problematic?
• Proximity to the centre of power (Political
and intellectual).
• Association as a Protestant revolutionary.
• Use of history for ‘political’ purposes.
• Strategy to join up resistance.
• Gender.

37. Acknowledgements
• Rachel Barrett for her research assistance.
• Staff of the Limerick City Library, and
particularly Mike Maguire.
• Disclaimer: the views expressed in this
lecture are not necessarily the views of the
library!