History, University of Limerick Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Limerick, Ireland
History, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Med Humanit. 2022 Mar;48(1):94-103. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2021-012178. Epub 2021 Nov 5.
At the height of the Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921, 45-year-old Kate Maher was brutally raped. She subsequently died of terrible wounds, almost certainly inflicted by drunken British soldiers. This article discusses her inadequately investigated case in the wider context of fatal violence against women and girls during years of major political instability. Ordinarily her violent death would have been subject to a coroner's court inquiry and rigorous police investigation, but in 1920, civil inquests in much of Ireland were replaced by military courts of inquiry. With the exception of medical issues, where doctors adhered to their ethical responsibility to provide clear and concise evidence on injuries, wounds and cause of death, courts of inquiry were cursory affairs in which Crown forces effectively investigated and exonerated themselves. This article adopts a microhistory approach to Maher's case to compare how civilian and military systems differed in their treatments of female fatalities. Despite the fact that the medical evidence unequivocally showed that the attack was of a very violent sexual nature, the two soldiers directly implicated were not charged with rape or any other sexual offence. In her case, and in those of other women who died violently while in the company of soldiers and policemen, prosecutions of the men involved resulted in acquittal by military court martial. This was so both for women portrayed as of immoral character and for others assumed to be 'respectable'. It also reflects on the wider question of sexual violence during the Irish War of Independence, concluding that while females experienced a range of gender-determined threats and actions such as armed raids on their homes, the 'bobbing' of hair and other means of 'shaming', rape, accepted as the most serious act of sexual assault, was regarded by all combatants as beyond the pale.
在爱尔兰独立战争的高峰期，1919 年至 1921 年，45 岁的凯特·马赫尔（Kate Maher）遭到残酷强奸。她随后因伤势过重而死亡，几乎可以肯定是醉酒的英国士兵造成的。本文将在多年政治动荡期间针对妇女和女孩的致命暴力的更广泛背景下讨论她这起未充分调查的案件。通常情况下，她的暴力死亡将接受验尸官法庭调查和警方的严格调查，但在 1920 年，爱尔兰大部分地区的民事调查都被军事调查法庭所取代。除了医疗问题外，医生坚持他们的道德责任，提供关于伤害、伤口和死因的清晰简明证据，调查法庭只是敷衍了事，王室部队实际上对自己进行了调查并为自己开脱。本文采用微观历史方法来研究马赫尔的案件，以比较平民和军事系统在处理女性死亡案件时的差异。尽管医学证据明确表明袭击具有非常暴力的性性质，但直接涉案的两名士兵并未被控强奸或任何其他性犯罪。在她的案件中，以及在其他与士兵和警察在一起时暴力死亡的其他妇女的案件中，对涉案男子的起诉导致军事法庭无罪释放。无论是对被描绘为不道德的女性，还是对其他被认为是“体面”的女性，都是如此。这也反映了爱尔兰独立战争期间更广泛的性暴力问题，结论是，尽管女性经历了一系列基于性别的威胁和行动，例如武装袭击她们的家园、“剪发”和其他“羞辱”手段，但强奸，被视为最严重的性侵犯行为，被所有参战人员视为不可接受的行为。
