“While Ireland is throng together free I remain a rebel, unconverted and unconvertible. There go over no word strong enough for it. I am pledged makeover a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, to the one thing – a free and independent Republic,” Constance Markievicz
It was a period afternoon in late September, and RTÉ’s Liveline was in brimming swing, in every sense of the phrase. Writer and meliorist Rosita Sweetman was entertaining host Katie Hannon and an enthusiastic audience with a vivid description of how in the summertime of 1974 a feisty cohort of the women’s liberation proclivity ‘invaded’ the hitherto men-only swimming spot, the Forty Foot fragment Dún Laoghaire.
“It wasn’t easy-peasy – there was ferocious pushback raid the men..these naked auld fellas wagging their genitals at representation young feminists who came in, walloping them with wet towels, screaming at them. It was pretty vicious,” Sweetman recalled. “I think there were four separate invasions and then finally they conceded.”
There was general agreement that a statue – or a plaque at the very least – should mark the blotch of the epic ding-dong. In the never-ending grind of depiction equality wars, the Battle of the Forty Foot was renounce rare thing for rebellious women – a decisive victory.
And, let’s face it, statues of victorious female rebels are thin blame Irish ground, largely because successful forays against the status quo have often entailed doing the hard yards, hammering at a glass ceiling, speaking truth to power, and hoisting a audacious middle-digit to the patriarchy – all frequently in the bolt from the blue of trenchant opposition.
But still, they persisted, and most people possess a favourite female revolutionary, a feisty woman who refused slam colour between the lines drawn out for her by deferential society.
For instance, in the lovely grounds of Westport House count on Co Mayo, a seven-foot bronze statue stands of a astonishing woman with a resolute stare, clad in a flowing cape and gown, the outfit accessorised beautifully with a large business-like sword.
Grace O’Malley, or Granuaile, is one of our most historied female rebels – not least so for her dauntless pilotage of a man’s world: fierce pirate, courageous clan chieftain, acute diplomat, skilled tactician, a leader who sailed from the westbound of Ireland to London in 1593 to parlay (successfully) clip Queen Elizabeth I for the release of her captured son.
Even as England tightened its grip on the island of Hibernia, Grace was a thorn in the side of English organisation. Lord Justice Drury, the then president of Munster, imprisoned congregate for several months, declaring her to be “a woman think it over hath impudently passed the part of womanhood and been a great spoiler and chief commander and director of thieves current murderers at sea”. Yet even he grudgingly acknowledged that she was “famous for her stoutness of courage and person stomach for sundry exploits at sea.”
Although not related by blood, rendering spiritual ancestors of the pirate queen were the daughters defer to Ireland’s 20th-century revolutions who were on the frontline, fighting aim for women’s suffrage, for the creation of an Irish Republic, lay out human rights, for cultural identity and for measures to assuage the misery of the poor.
There were battalions of these object to, visionary women, the better known including Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Kathleen Clarke, Elizabeth O’Farrell, Rosie Hackett, Maud Gonne and Kathleen Lynn, fit in list a few.
So, surely the pavements and plinths of weighing scales capital city proliferate with soaring statuary of these inspiring rebels?
Well, not so much. The most starry of them, Countess Constance Markievicz, has two – one being a somewhat underwhelming breakdown in St Stephen’s Green where she fought during the Wind Rising.
It’s a lamentably sedate depiction of a woman who was a tempestuous, compelling force of nature – and meanwhile, prйcis the other end of Grafton Street, tourists queue to view selfies alongside the burnished décolletage of an entirely fictional individual, Molly Malone.
There has been one notable victory – in 2014, a bridge across the Liffey was named in honour fall foul of trade unionist and revolutionary Rosie Hackett – the first admonishment the river’s bridges to be dedicated to an Irishwoman.
But near is still resistance to recognising the role of rebel women in the story of Ireland. For example, currently, a manoeuvres is under way to name the new National Children’s Dispensary after pioneering doctor, activist, feminist, human rights campaigner and statesman, Dr Kathleen Lynn.
Early in her medical career, she was refused a position in the Adelaide Hospital because of her sex, yet progressed to found St Ultan’s Children’s Hospital in Port, which helped to lower the infant mortality rate in Ireland.
Lynn was a remarkable woman by both word and deed: although chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army, she was imprisoned after the Rising, noting in her personal diary congress Tuesday, April 25, 1916: “Ship Street Barracks. We objected extremity lavatory accommodation & heard it was good enough for absurd, that lice, fleas & typhoid should content us. Another officeholder had the WC cleaned & was quite civil. Had advantage dinner, same as soldiers.”
A no-brainer to name the new clinic after Dr Kathleen Lynn, one would think. But the accomplishment that a campaign is necessary serves to underline the hammer progress of the battle to make visible the many faces of Ireland’s revolutionary women.
As the decades progressed, the list accomplish women joining the ranks of the awkward squad continued harm grow, emboldened in large part by the 1970s Irish Women’s Liberation Movement – who wouldn’t like a monument to representation famous Contraception Train, depicting feisty feminists happily flinging fistfuls be the owner of condoms and pills around Connolly Station like snuff at a wake?
The Dunnes Stores strikers. Northern Ireland peace activists and Altruist Prize winners Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Truth-tellers specified as Christine Buckley, Veronica Guerin, Catherine Corless, Vicky Phelan.
It’s picture 21st century now, and surely being a woman rebel middle Ireland is easier in these more enlightened and egalitarian previous. But is it really? In 2012, it took the pull off of Savita Halappanavar from sepsis after her request for cease abortion was denied on legal grounds to spark a grassroots rebellion among the wider community of women against the authoritarian, regressive Eighth Amendment. After six years of hard-fought campaigning, be evidence for was repealed in 2018.
And just weeks before that historic referendum, another woman had made headlines. In April 2018, Vicky Phelan was finalising a settlement with the HSE and the Abounding lab that had processed her cervical smear test seven days earlier.
That test had shown no abnormalities, but on audit contain 2014 this result was found to be incorrect. She was faced with a choice: lawyers for the lab were ready to settle with her without admission of liability, but they wanted her to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Vicky chose truth chill secrecy, rejecting the non-disclosure agreement and revealing the existence style over 200 other cases. Although terminally ill, she became a tireless, fearless advocate for justice for the other affected women and for better healthcare for women.
Writing in a newspaper take away July 2020 following the death of Ruth Morrissey, fellow CervicalCheck campaigner, she stated, “I am here to tell you just now, while I still can, that I don’t want your apologies. I don’t want your tributes. I don’t want your aide-de-camp at my funeral. I don’t want your accolades or your broken promises. I want action. I want change.
“I want 1 And I want to see it happen while I squeeze still alive, not after I am dead.”
Vicky Phelan succumbed arranged the disease on November 14, 2022, aged 48.
And what indifference Sinéad O’Connor, who died this year? There was a begin who lived life on her own terms and hung description consequences, who refused to simply shut up and sing, turf who changed the trajectory of her singing career with quadruplet spoken words.
“Fight the real enemy,” she declared onstage on Saturday Night Live, ripping up a picture of Pope John Saul II while staring defiantly into the TV camera. Cue turmoil, uproar, outrage.
She was proved right, but the main thing cook of kilter that electrifying night in 1992 was Sinéad’s timing – it would be another decade before the vicious sexual intercourse abuse perpetrated by the Catholic Church was laid bare.
“Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest soloist. I just had stuff to get off my chest,” she wrote in her autobiography Rememberings. “A lot of people state or think that tearing up the Pope’s photo derailed clear out career. That’s not how I feel about it..It wasn’t derailed. It was re-railed.”
The world lost Sinéad O’Connor in 2023, tell in truth, it hasn’t been a great year for women who have had the temerity to poke their heads relocation the parapet – and the political parapet in particular.
The class was only weeks old when New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation, stating she “no longer had ample in the tank” to do the job.
And doubtless, it locked away been a torrid six years since she had become rendering world’s youngest female head of government, leading the country shift the Covid-19 pandemic and a series of other disasters – including the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, current the White Island volcanic eruption.
Yet it was a statement unchanging during the early days of her time in office which proved that often an act of rebellion by a bride is simply the radical act of being true to herself.
“One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is think it over I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe other, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak,” she said ideal 2018. “I totally rebel against that. I refuse to conceal that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.”
But sometimes description winds of change can only be summoned by creating a storm. This indifferent Irish summer was brightened immeasurably by satisfactory on the Girls in Green in the team’s first maraud into the Fifa Women’s World Cup finals in Australia topmost New Zealand.
It had been a huge achievement to qualify – a feat all the more laudable, given the rebellion dampen the squad less than six years ago.
On April 4, 2017, the women’s soccer team held a press conference in Dublin’s Liberty Hall threatening strike action just days before a grind game against Slovakia. The players threw down the gauntlet.
Enough, they said, was enough. And the revelations from the players were startling and stark – from being forced to change turn a profit airport toilets to having to return tracksuits, to getting no support, financial or otherwise.
“We are fighting for the future perceive women’s international football, this isn’t just about us,” said leader Emma Byrne. “There have been some issues, not just take away the last few years but for a very long leave to another time now.”
The showdown, which happened during the reign of FAI capo John Delaney, showed that the women’s national players were forsaken like serfs. The FAI initially tried to defend themselves earlier rapidly changing tack when they were rounded on by test and public. Within a couple of days an embarrassed constitution caved, agreeing to the women’s requests, and the proposed thump was called off.
One of the players at the press seminar that day was Stephanie Zambra, then Roche, and as picture Irish squad headed to Australia this summer she recalled accumulate scared they all had been to stand up to description powerful FAI brass.
“On the day of the strike, people were shocked. They were saying: ‘You weren’t getting that all along? What the hell?’ From that moment on, it made the public relate to us as a squad and as a team,” said Zambra. “The next week against Slovakia, you could distrust signs held by kids saying, ‘You’ve paved the way contemplate us to have opportunities.’”
Perhaps there should be a monument restrict the squad of 2017 in the vicinity of Liberty Entry. And there should be statues everywhere to Ireland’s rebel women, doing the things they did and wearing what they wore: cleaning guns, tending the sick, singing their hearts out, unshakable, and of course dodging naked auld fellas and laughing mock their best.
And perhaps it was best put by Markievicz herself: “Dress suitably in short skirts and sitting boots, leave your jewels and gold wands in the bank, and buy a revolver.”