Women in Irish Political
Life
Lecture 14
‘A significant minority of Irish women
had become increasingly articulate and
active in feminist, nationalist and labour
concerns. To the number of nationalist
women involved before and during the
Rising of 1916, many thousands more
were added in the wake of the Rising.
From this point up to the bitter political
divisions caused by the Treaty in 1922,
such women played a significant role in
the development of the emerging state.’
• Cullen Owens, R, A Social History of Women in
Ireland, p251.
‘It is generally assumed that nineteenthcentury Irish politics were a function of public
life, a male activity in which women played little
if any role. Political historians pay scant
attention to the role of women in political life,
seeing it as either peripheral, or of small
consequence. Women, of course, were not
voters, nor did they have access to high political
office in the nineteenth century. Although
individual women such as Isabella Tod and
Anna Haslam can be regarded as politicians, for
most of the nineteenth century Irish women
were excluded from formal male political
culture.’
Maria Luddy, ‘Women and Politics in NineteenthCentury Ireland’ in Women and Irish History, p89.
Ladies’ Land League
Fanny Parnell (18491882)
Founded in New York in
October 1880
Dissolved in August 1882
Raised funds
Oversaw the housing of
evicted tenants
Visible role in Irish political life
Some women were radicalised
by their involvement and
became important
national figures – Jenny Wyse
Power and Hannah Lynch
Contagious Diseases Acts
• Series of acts
introduced in the
1860s to reduce the
army’s vulnerability
to VD
• 1869: Ladies’
National Association
for the Contagious
Diseases Acts est.
Branches set up in
Ireland
• 1886: Contagious
Diseases Acts
repealed
Local franchises
• 1887: women householders in
Belfast get the municipal vote
• 1896: Irish women can vote for, and
stand as, Poor Law Guardians
• 1898: Local government franchise
women have the right to vote for
local councils, and to sit on district
councils, but not on county councils.
Early Suffrage
• 1872 first
suffrage society
est. in Belfast by
Isabella M S Tod
• 1876 first
suffrage society
est. in Dublin by
Anna and Thomas
Haslam
Anna & Thomas Haslam, early
pioneers of Irish feminism
1896: Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association
(est. 1876) had 43 members
1912: IWFL (est. 1908)had 1000 members,
50 of whom were active
1909: Irish branch of the Conservative and
Unionist Women’s Suffrage Association
founded
1911: Munster Women’s Franchise League
established
1913: Church League for Women’s Suffrage
set up (Anglican)
1915: Irish Catholic Women’s Suffrage
Association founded
Carson and Bonar Law confronted
by Margaret Connery of the IWFL in
Dublin c. 1912
Anti-suffrage demonstration in
Strabane, Co. Tyrone, c. 1910
Ulster Women’s Unionist
Council
• Founded in January 1911 to support
male unionists
• 200,000 members in 1913
• Early 1914 approx. 3000 women had
enlisted in the UVF
• Trained in signalling, as ambulance
and despatch riders, postal workers,
typists and intelligence workers
Cumann na mBan member
Sighle Humphreys
‘I had a good deal of prejudice to
overcome on the part of the parents,
who did not mind their boys taking part
in a military movement, but who had
never heard of, and were reluctant to
accept, the idea of a body of gunwomen. It was, of course, a rather
startling innovation and, in that way,
Cumann na mBan can claim to have
been the pioneers in establishing what
was undoubtedly a women's auxiliary
of an army. I fully understood this
attitude and eventually, in most cases,
succeeded in overcoming this
prejudice.’
Bridget O’Mullane, Witness Statement 450.
Aims of Cumann na mBan
1. To advance the cause of Irish liberty
2. To organise Irishwomen in furtherance
of this object
3. To assist in arming and equipping a body of
Irishmen for the defence of Ireland
4. To form a fund for these purposes to be
called the ‘Defence of Ireland Fund’
Cumann na mBan
Cumann na mBan reciting the rosary in
their ranks outside Mountjoy prison
• Wednesday, April 26th. 19 chickens captured
from messenger boy. Quiet day. We cooked
the chickens for dinner, having to take them
up out of the pots with bayonets, not having
any forks or utensils for cooking. Dinner was
very successful.
• Thursday, 27th. Three live calves captured;
one was killed by a Volunteer who was a
butcher (Bob Holland) for dinner for Friday.
(God forgive us).
• Friday, 28th. Up early for breakfast; we fried
veal cutlets and gave the men a good feed. We
had a meat dinner, potatoes, etc. 9 chickens
commandeered.
Rose McNamara, Vice Commandant of the Cumann na
mBan contingent in the Marrowbone Lane distillery,
Easter 1916
Elizabeth O’Farrell
‘My home was a centre for the receipt and
despatch of despatches. It was
convenient for Seán Sharkey, the
Battalion I/O, and for Seán Cooney,
who, as a rule, took charge of all
despatches arriving in Clonmel. Myself
and my children often delivered
despatches to Scroutea, Derrinlar and
Newcastle when it was considered
unsafe for Volunteers to leave town
with them. As a camouflage, I usually
carried a camera, and if held up by
police or military, I was supposed to be
out photographing.’
Mrs M.A. McGrath, Witness Statement 1704