Wrens of the Curragh

The Wrens of the Curragh were a community of women in nineteenth century Ireland, who lived outside society of the plains of Kildare, many of whom were sex workers at Curragh Camp.

Two women who were Wrens of the Curragh

Etymology

The Wrens of Curragh were a community of sex workers who lived on the Curragh (plains) of Kildare.[1] The women were called "wrens" because they slept in hollows in the ground which were half in banks or ditches, covered in furze bushes, like the nests birds in the wren family make.[1]

History

Records of women living on the Curragh, close to the army camp, date back to the 1840s.[1] The Curragh Camp became permanent in 1856, which meant that the women's presence became continuous.[1] The last records of their presence extend to the 1880s.[2] Many of these women were orphaned during the Great Famine and used prostitution as a means to provide for themselves.[3] Some of the women lived on the plains seasonally, with up to 60 women there in the summer months.[2] Outside of harvest-time, unemployed agricultural workers may have raised the number higher.[4]

Lifestyle

The women developed a communistic lifestyle: where money, homes, belongings, food and childcare were shared.[5] Neither was there any kind of leader.[5] Whilst the women were ostracised from the community in town, they also avoided contact where possible, for example in terms of medical care the women administered remedies they made or bought.[2] Whilst the women were dependent on the soldiers for money, they also knitted garments which they sold at markets to gain some financial independence from the army camp.[6] Still, it was the Army which supplied them with fresh water and allowed them to buy goods at the camp market 2-3 times a week.[7] This network of mutual aid may have been even stronger in some ways than the more traditional support networks in the surrounding areas.[8]

The women were unpopular locally and in 1855 one rate-payer complained that not only did the women cause moral corruption, but they were also an expense paid for by rate-payer's taxes.[9] In 1857 the Presbyterian chaplain of the camp wrote to The Times complaining about their presence around the camp.[9] Charles Dickens also wrote about the women in his journal All The Year Round in 1864.[10]

Journalistic attention

In 1867 the journalist James Greenwood of the Pall Mall Gazette visited the Wrens and recorded their lifestyle.[11] Prior to his visit, in the same year, the situation of the "Wrens" and the soldiers was discussed in the British Medical Journal; in the article some of the women are portrayed as thieves.[12]

Greenwood noted the poverty within which they lived and the prostitution which funded the life they were living.[2] In a later pamphlet, Greenwood discussed how not all of the women were prostitutes.[13] Some of the women were in common-law marriages with soldiers at the camp, but due to army regulations could not live with the men.[2]

Impact of public attention

The Medical Times & Gazette featured a response to Greenwood's article, who focused on the moral debasement of the wrens, as well as discussing the lack of sanitation and the effects on public health.[14]

The impact of Greenwood's visit and the publication of his articles, led to public discussion and the introduction of the Curragh of Kildare Act (1868).[15][16][17] This introduced a "lock hospital" to treat the women in.[6] Treatment for the women there was poor and they were often blamed for the incidents of sexually transmitted diseases which were common amongst the soldiers.[18]

The lives of the "Wrens of the Curragh" have inspired a range of creative responses:

Novels

In 1873 they are mentioned in a short story "The Humby Election" by George Fraser.[19] In 2010, author Martin Mallone wrote the novel The Only Glow of the Day about life on the Curragh.[20] Likewise, Rose Doyle wrote the novel Friends Indeed in 2011.[21] In 2018, novelist Orla McAlinden published The Flight of the Wren, which re-imagined the lives of the women.[22]

Poetry

In 2007, the poet Mebh McGuckian featured the Wrens in her volume The Currach Requires No Harbour.[23]

Music

The singer Jane McNamee composed a song "The Curragh Wrens".[24] Likewise, Ollie Kennedy wrote the song "The Curragh Wrens" from the perspective of a soldier at the camp, despite the title it doesn't directly refer to the women in the song at all.[25]

Podcasts

In 2019, the first episode of the podcast Historical Whores discussed the Curragh Wrens.[26]

Visual Arts

In 2020, the artist Amanda Coogan continued her work on a project about the women.[27]

References
  1. Doyle, Rose (13 October 2001). "Songbirds on society's margins". The Irish Times. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  2. Luddy, Maria (1992). "An outcast community:the 'wrens' of the curragh". Women's History Review. 1 (3): 346. doi:10.1080/09612029200200014. ISSN 0961-2025.
  3. "Turtle Bunbury - Award-winning travel writer, historian and author based in Ireland". www.turtlebunbury.com. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  4. RIORDAN, SUSANNAH (2010). Luddy, Maria; Smith, James M. (eds.). "Challenging Bad Nuns: Ireland's Magdalen Laundries". The Irish Review (1986-) (42): 120–127. ISSN 0790-7850.
  5. "Sex History: The Curragh Wrens | University Express". UCC Express. 16 October 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  6. Luddy, Maria (1992). "An outcast community:the 'wrens' of the curragh". Women's History Review. 1 (3): 349. doi:10.1080/09612029200200014. ISSN 0961-2025.
  7. "The Curragh Wrens". www.curragh.info. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  8. PRESTON, MARGARET (2008). "Review of Prostitution and Irish Society: 1800–1940". New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua. 12 (3): 148–150. ISSN 1092-3977.
  9. Luddy, Maria. (2007). Prostitution and Irish society, 1800-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-521-88241-5. OCLC 154706356.
  10. "STONING THE DESOLATE". www.kildare.ie. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  11. [edited by] Maria Luddy (1995). Women in Ireland, 1800-1918 : a documentary history. Cork: Cork University Press. p. 199. ISBN 1-85918-037-X. OCLC 33437815.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  12. "The Curragh". British Medical Journal. 2: 210.
  13. Koven, Seth, 1958- (2004). Slumming : sexual and social politics in Victorian London. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 304. ISBN 0-691-11592-3. OCLC 53096998.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. "Prostitution at the Curragh". The Medical Times & Gazette: 466. 1867.
  15. "Curragh of Kildare Act 1868 (Hansard)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  16. Curragh of Kildare Act (PDF).
  17. Women, families and the British army, 1700-1880. Volume VI, Aftermath (1856-1880). Hurl-Eamon, Jennine,, MacKay, Lynn,. London. ISBN 978-1-003-01798-1. OCLC 1145123703.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. Harvey, Dan, 1959-. Soldiers of the short grass : a history of the Curragh Camp. Newbridge, Co. Kildare. ISBN 978-1-78537-062-5. OCLC 967719049.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. Fraser, George (1873). The Humby Election, or Votes and Voices. Trübner & Co.
  20. Malone, Martin. (2010). The only glow of the day. Dublin. ISBN 978-1-84840-077-1. OCLC 676788910.
  21. Doyle, Rose (2011). Friends Indeed. Hachette. ISBN 9781444719406.
  22. "The Flight of the Wren". historicalwriters.org. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  23. Clark, Heather (2008). "Review of The Currach Requires No Harbours". Harvard Review (35): 223–226. ISSN 1077-2901.
  24. "The Bluegrass Ireland Blog: Jane McNamee, Vinny Baker, and Tom Hanway on RTÉ Pat Kenny - now TUESDAY 23 March". Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  25. "Ollie Kennedy". www.irishmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  26. Whores, Historical. "Episode 1: Theodora and the Curragh Wrens – Historical Whores – Podcast". Podtail. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  27. "Postcards From The Pandemic: Amanda Coogan". 23 May 2020. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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