“I'm writing a woman out of legend. I think about how new this story is. How difficult it will be to say” (Eavan Boland). Much twentieth-century Irish literature deals with issues of gender. Although stereotypical representations of men and women were often central to many narratives, some authors chose to abandon the gender archetypes to which they were culturally confined. In their play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, authors Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats present their audiences with contrasting gender ideologies in their respective contributions to the text. While the work in its entirety is political and is therefore a critical piece of Irish nationalism within the genre of Irish literature, divergent political statements are made within. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Within her critical text Ascendancy Nationalism, Feminist Nationalism, and Stagecraft in Lady Gregory's Revision of Kincora, Professor Maureen Hawkins highlights the inferiority complex between gender roles and their relationship to Irish nationalism. She notes that although many women “played prominent roles in political and cultural nationalist movements, they and their efforts were marginalized and sometimes repressed” (Hawkins, 95). Similarly, within English Radicals and Reformers, authors Edward Royle and James Walvin, comment on the “emancipation” of women regarding their position in nationalist movements (Royle & Walvin, 188). Women and their role in politics were greatly weakened. Although Lady Gregory has been coined the "woman behind the Irish Renaissance", this title does not allude to her influential role regarding the establishment of Irish literature. Her contributions were often overshadowed by those of her predominantly male literary colleagues, such as those of William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge. However, her work deserves widespread recognition for its feminist undertones, as it attempts to reformulate gender ideologies and expose the nature of Irish nationalism. Recent scholarship has addressed exactly this situation: “Ireland, of course, has long been gendered – by the nationalist political metanarrative and cultural nationalism of traditional history and literature – as a female victim of the colonizing English male. For an equally long time, the lives of royal Irish women were probably colonized by Irish men, at the same time both sexes were colonial subjects of England” (Bradley & Valiulis, 6). In twentieth-century Irish literature, the Irish woman was generally confined to her role as maiden or old hag. With little mention of independent thought or action, their characters were often not of great significance. Indeed, “In the literature of the emerging nation, women have returned to being a site of competition rather than an agent of their own desire. No nationalism in the world has ever granted women and men the same privileged resources of the nation-state” (Kiberd, 406-7). However, known for her feminist ideals, Lady Gregory plays on this discrepant allegory by empowering her female characters. In Cathleen Ni Houlihan, mythology is used to dramatize a lost and homeless Ireland that can only be avenged by acts of heroism. Series of symbols evoke the recurring theme of nationalism, but the most important is that of Cathleen herself. An elderly woman who can be reborn young and beautiful only thanks to the sacrifice ofyoung men, Cathleen becomes a personification of Ireland, as she demands that these men act on her behalf and protect her from outside forces: “Bridget. What brought you to wander? Old woman. Too many strangers in the house. Bridget. In fact you sound like you've had your share of troubles. Old woman. I really had some problems. Bridget. What got you in trouble? Old woman. My land was taken from me. Peter. Did it look like a lot of land you see for yourself? Old woman. My four beautiful green fields” (Gregory & Yeats, 5). The reader is immediately able to make connections between Cathleen's abstract dialogue and their parallels to Irish history, supporting the ideal that she is the embodiment of Ireland. For example, editor James Pethica writes that the "four beautiful green fields" allude to the four provinces of Ireland: Munster, Leinster, Ulster and Connacht. According to The Great Queens: Irish Goddesses from the Morrigan to Cathleen Ni Houlihan by Rosalind Clark, “To the audience it is clear that her speech has a double meaning, but to the family in the play it seems perfectly natural at first: the old woman's speech The situation is all too unusual among Irish beggars. There is another side to her speech that they can't understand, but they attribute it to the fact that she has had so many problems that "led her astray". But these speeches are full of meaning and produce intense emotion in the audience, who suddenly realize that this old woman is Cathleen” (Clark, 174). Cathleen states that she wandered because there are “too many strangers in the house” (Gregory and Yeats, 5). The authors refer to the real world conflict by insinuating the reign of Great Britain over Ireland (the English are strangers to the house of Ireland). By adding a realistic aspect to the text, themes of nationalism are legitimized and Lady Gregory and Yeasts' arguments bring an influential depth to their audience. Enlisting the help of "friends," Cathleen entices men to "die for her" with promises of fame and glory. He tells Michael, the Gillanes' son, about the series of heroes who sacrificed themselves. Abandoning his fiancée, he becomes eager to do the same.“Peter [to Patrick, leaning on his arm]. Did you see an old woman coming down the path? Patrician. I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen” (Gregory & Yeats, 9). This female representation reflects an idyllic masculine image of femininity. However, since women were often characterized by their docile and caring nature, Cathleen's bloodlust is a shocking contradiction to this traditional female archetype: "Cathleen Ni Houlihan celebrates death [and] invites men to die for an abstract notion of the four beautiful green fields". and idealized concept of Ireland" (Innes, 109). In her article "Thinking of Her... as... Ireland: Yeats, Pearse and Heaney", Elizabeth Cullingford examines this representation of Ireland as a woman and concludes that this representation it is neither natural nor stereotyped, but “rhetorically invisible” (Cullingford, 3). Gregory presents to his audience an opposition to the traditional social structure of Ireland, in which men fight and defend their country on behalf of a woman. Moving away from the stereotype in which women served as passive symbols of the nation, Gregory denounces the patriarchal nature of nationalism and uses literature as a means to shatter gender ideologies. William Butler Yeats was undoubtedly a leader of the Irish literary revival, whose writing embodied nationalism. elements of the Irish spirit and culture. In his contribution to Cathleen Ni Houlihan, Yeats contrasts the materialistic life with the glory of sacrifice to clarify..