Frances Power Cobbe on Brutes, Women, and the Irish (Human) Landscape: Ethics, Environment, and Imperialism

Abstract

This essay focuses on how the Irish philanthropist, feminist, and animal-rights defender Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) uses similar terms of reference and methodologies of exposition in the pamphlets and essays she published on “the claims of brutes” and on “the claims of women”. Both discourses are tinged with hues of imperialism proper to her Anglo-Irish upbringing, which deploy a third, less-known interest on the part of Cobbe: “the Irish Question” (O’Connor). To make these points, the essay studies the author’s autobiography and five of her essays and pamphlets: “The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes” (1863), “Life in Donegal” (1866), “The Evolution of the Social Sentiment” (1874), “Wife-Torture in England” (1878), and Light in Dark Places (1883).