Rosamond Jacob: Third Person Singular

by Leeann Lane

Born in Waterford in 1888 Rosamond Jacob, of Quaker background, was in many cases a crowd member rather than a leader in the campaigns in which she participated - the turn of the century language revival, the suffrage campaign, the campaigns of the revolutionary period. She adopted an anti-Treaty stance in the 1920s, moving towards a fringe involvement in the activities of socialist republicanism in the early 1930s while continuing to vote Fianna Fail. Her commitment to feminist concerns was life long but at no point did she take or was capable of a leadership role. However, it was Jacob's failure to carve out a strong place in history as an activist which makes her interesting as a subject for biography. Her 'ordinariness' offers an alternative lens on the biographical project. By failing to marry, by her inability to find meaningful paid work, by her countless refusals from publishers, by the limited sales of what work was published, Jacob offers a key into lives more ordinary within the urban middle classes of her time, and suggests a new perspective on female lives.Jacob's life, galvanised at all times by political and feminist debate, offers a means of exploring how the central issues which shaped Irish politics and society in the first half of the twentieth century were experienced and digested by those outside the leadership cadre.

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2010

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic biography of a near forgotten Irish writer of the early twentieth century. Rosamond Jacob was a feminist, a liberal and had little or no religious beliefs in a male dominated, deeply conservative Catholic Ireland. The struggles of people like herself and others on the fringe of society and how they were ostracized would be interesting to read for that alone but she was also involved in the independence struggle against England and had an affair with a prominent republican. Well worth reading and will make you question the way history has being taught in our schools.