Dorothea Du Bois’ Theodora: Drinking, Duelling and Domestic Violence in Eighteenth-Century Irish Literature

Abstract

It has long been recognized that alcohol plays a significant role in triggering cases of intimate partner violence. However, society’s attitude toward the phenomenon can vary greatly depending on the specific historical context and the identities of victim and perpetrator. In eighteenth-century Ireland, elite culture was characterized by a prodigious taste for wine, a preoccupation with masculine codes of honor, and an ethos of lawlessness—a combustible combination that left women especially vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. The economic and political dimensions of Ireland’s eighteenth-century drinking culture have been analyzed by historians such as James Kelly and Martyn Powell, but the impact of this behavior behind closed doors is more difficult to discern. The writings of Dorothea Du Bois (1728–74) provide an illuminating window into the negative effects of male homosocial drinking and the general culture of impunity among the Irish elite within the domestic sphere.