Motherhood During ‘the Troubles’: The Gendered Nature of Coping with Conflict

This chapter considers mothering and motherhood in times of ‘the Northern Ireland Troubles’ through the voices of women who engaged in childrearing in areas that bore the brunt of the conflict. This chapter comprises four parts. First, it begins by drawing on the literature on women’s contributions to peacebuilding and women’s places in the family during ‘the Troubles’. Second, it will analyse the lived experiences of ‘the Troubles’ by mothers narrated by the respondents. The latter half of this chapter elaborates on individual mothers’ agency, examining mothers’ everyday strategies, actions and moral reasoning that may or may not have contributed to the transformation of conflict and the values at the grassroots of a war-torn society. The third part of this chapter considers the practices that mothers routinely engaged in response to the heightened risks and threats posed to them and their families during ‘the Troubles’. Lastly, this chapter will examine the moral landscape in society in times of ‘the Troubles’ through the life stories of mothers, considering how mundane, taken-for-granted moral values are constructed and shared in society amid the protracted violent conflict. By foregrounding women’s everyday lives as mothers in times of the conflict, the chapter discusses how their day-to-day actions and decisions may have quietly contributed to de-escalation of ethnonationalist violence, as well as how the conflict brutalised their everyday family lives.