Mná na hÉireann

Survival & Celebration

In 19th Century Irish Art&

Poetry & Song

Éire

Ériu goddess-queen of IrelandName rooted in mythology of early Ireland when the first people arrived from

Galicia [Spain].Means:

“ABUNDANT LAND” [Sanskrit]

Éire = Erin Ériu meets with

Amergin at "center" of Ireland [Book of

Ireland, published 1150 A.D.]

Hibernia from early Celtic word

evolved to Greek, translated to Latin.

[Tacitus, 98 A.D]

CORK

DUBLINGALWAY

BELFAST

DINGLE

DONEGAL

ATHLONE

WATERFORD

Mná na hÉireann

Maeve to the Two Marys

Medb [Maeve], Legendary Queen of Connacht,

who insisted that she be equal in wealth with her husband Ailill and started the Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley")

to steal Ulster's prize stud bull.

Medb, buried in a 40-foot high stone cairn on the summit of

Knocknarea, Co SligoUlster Cycle stories: traditionally set

around time of Christ.

Led her army with “strength of a

lioness”

‘The Sea

Queen of

Connaught’Fearless leader by land and by sea, political pragmatist and tactician, rebel, pirate and matriarch.

Grace O'Malley, the sixteenth-century Irish woman provoked awe, anger, admiration, and fear in the English men who, by persuasion and by the sword, came to conquer the land of her birth.

Gráinne Mhaol by Gisela Fizato Award : Best Irish-language Book for Young

Readers * 2013

TWO QUEENS MEET: 1593the two most powerful women in

the British Isles, both political and military leaders of men,

Grace & Elizabeth***********************

Grace was a thorn in England's side -- a "bleeding ulcer" who refused to submit. 

Her notorious exploits on the sea also posed a threat to England's purse. 

When Grace's son and half-brother were imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth's armies, she sailed to English soil to seek favor from Elizabeth and petitioned their release-successfully – 1593.

Grace O'Malley returned to a life of leadership and piracy on the west of Ireland and is remembered as one of the last great leaders of Gaelic Ireland.

Both Queens died the same year, 1603

Elizabeth I & Gráinne Ní Mháille London * * July 1593

Grace acted as one Queen meeting another and did not bow before Elizabeth.

Anna Haslam (née Fisher; 1829–1922)Women’s Rights, Famine Relief, International

PeaceBorn in Cork, 1829, a Quaker Founded Irish Women’s Suffrage Association with Quaker husband Organized Famine relief International peace movement

Invaluable help to research history of birth control.

Died 1922, year Irish Free State extended the vote to all men & women over 21.“Anna Haslam's contribution to the development of Irish feminist activism was enormous, as was that of the suffrage association she founded. She combined strong and effective Leadership with an ability to win the respect and admiration of many who disagreed with her on various issues.” (Mary Cullen, historian).

Constance Georgine Markievicz née Gore-Booth; (1868 – 1927): Politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette-hunger striker; took part in 1916 Easter Rising; first woman elected to British Parliament; helped to form first Dáil Éireann (1919). She died of TB contracted when she worked in the poorhouses of Dublin. During Easter Rising, 1916, Countess Lieutenant Markievicz was second in command to Michael Mallin in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin across from Shelburne Hotel.

Held out for six days, finally giving up only when the British brought them a copy of Pearse's surrender order.

Taken to Kilmainham Gaol and sentenced to death by General John Maxwell, British Army officer and colonial governor in a field general court martial, a trial without defence or jury and in secret: Verdict: ‘Guilty. Death by being shot’, but commuted to life in prison “solely and only on account of the prisoner's sex.”

Widely reported that the Countess told the court, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me".

“One thing she had in abundance —-physical courage; with that she was clothed as with a

garment.” Seán O'Casey

 "I did what I thought was right, and I stand

by it".

Dr. Kathleen Lynn (1874-1955) :“unparalleled contribution to paediatric

medicine”- Royal College of Irish Physicians.

Dr. Kathleen Lynn, Co-founder of Teach Ultain: [St. Ultan’s Infants Hospital] first hospital set up by Irish women doctors in 1919; all doctors, nurses and staff were women. A Medical doctor, Sinn Féin politician, suffragette, patriot, revolutionary worked along side of Countess Markievicz, imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail for her part in the 1916 Easter Rising and then deported to England. Received State funeral, 1955.

Eamon de Valera: 1920s: “Irish woman’s place is in the home.” Dr Lynn replied: ”We all believe that a woman’s place is in the home, provided she has a home”, and pointed out that not all women wanted to be tied to the kitchen sink.

Dr Kathleen Lynn featured on RTE SUNDAY

MISCELLANY, Sept. 15, 2013 >>LISTEN 6.13 mins

Maud Gonne, actress & Irish nationalist “Till Ireland is free her people cannot be free or prosperous.”

 

“I started Inghinidhe na hÉireann [Daughters of Ireland] in Dublin on Easter Sunday 1900 because when I went to join the National League, I was told ‘A woman’s place is in the home. But don’t be afraid, Miss Gonne, we will find plenty of work for you, if that is what you want.’  I was not satisfied, and said so. I know women can do some things better than men, and men can do some things better than we can; but I don’t like this exclusion of women from the National fight, and the fact they should have to work through back-door influence if they want to get things done.”

When in 1914 Inghinidhe na hÉireann was absorbed into Cumann na mBan, the women’s auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers led by Countess Markievicz. Some members joined the Irish Citizen Army to participate in the 1916 Rising.

"I have always hated war and am by nature

and philosophy a pacifist, but it is the

English who are forcing war on us,

and the first principle of war is to kill the

enemy.”

Maude Gonne – plays the Old Woman in Yeats/Gregory play: Cathleen Ní Houlihan

-1902A family whose son is about to be married is visited by a strange old woman Cathleen Ní Houlihan [a mythic figure - represents a free Ireland] who sings and laments her 4 stolen green fields.

Cathleen Ní Houlihan lures the young man away from his betrothed and when the youth leaves the safety of his home to fight for her, she appears as an image of youth with "the walk of a queen," professing that of those who fight for her: "They shall be remembered forever, They shall be alive forever, They shall be speaking forever, The people shall hear them forever.“

Autobiography: A Servant of the Queen,

reference to both a vision she had of the Irish queen of old, Cathleen (or Caitlin) Ní

Houlihan - and an ironic title considering Gonne's Irish

Nationalism and rejection of the British Queen.

When he met Maude Gonne, said Yeats: “all the trouble of

my life began.”

English born Irish actress,

revolutionary & Yeats’ muse

The seeds of change were sown for a change in the role and place of women in Irish society – early 19th

century1. By making elementary education available to all (Education Act of 1831)2. By remarkable vision and energy of women pioneers in religious orders

whose mission was and is: in education, hospitals, work for social justice and structural change, especially in issues related to women and children, immigrants and ethnic communities, the environment and sustainable living, and human rights. 

Presentation Sisters in Ireland founded by Nano Nagle in Cork in 1771. First school established 1754 with enrollment of thirty-five girls in a

two-room cabin during PENAL LAWS. This began her great work of education and as some historians have noted, her important work in saving the Irish culture. Over 1,200 Sisters world-wide, in Australia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, England, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Slovakia, the United States, Zambia, Zimbabwe

IRISH Sisters of Charity founded in Ireland, in 1815, by Mary Aikenhead. Fourth vow is 'service of the poor'. Convents in eight countries, on four continents.

Sisters of Loreto in Ireland established by Mother Teresa Ball in 1823. Worldwide: education, hospitals, social justice, women’s issues.

Catherine McAuley, Dublin (1778-1841) used her

inheritance to found Sisters of Mercy, 1831 in Ireland and England. When she died in 1841 there were 150 Sisters of Mercy. Small groups of sisters left Ireland

at the invitation of bishops in Newfoundland, New Zealand,

United States, Argentina, Australia.  They serve in North,

Central and South America; Caribbean; Guam, Philippines.Sisters of Mercy, largest order of

religious women [4,732] in United States working on immigration reform,

homelessness, housing, healthcare, education,

women in distress & children.Pupils in parochial schools: 104,726

& in academies and high schools: 9967Orphanages: 67

Orphans & children in institutions: 3834

Hospitals: 53 including MERCY HOSPITAL, PORTLAND,

MAINE est.1918Today, the sisters no longer directly

operate but continue to sponsor Mercy

Hospital, Catherine McAuley High School in

Portland and St. Joseph's College in Standish.

“Do not fear offending anyone. Speak as your mind directs and always act with more courage when the ‘mammon of unrighteousness’ is in question.” --McAuley in Letter to Mary Ann Doyle July 24, 1841

ALSO in AMERICA: Irish Women Lead the way. MARYKNOLL MISSIONARY SISTERS

founded in 1912 by Mollie Rogers (1882-1955) - Mother Mary Joseph

- granddaughter of Irish immigrants.Grew up in Roxbury, MA. Graduate of Smith College 1905. First group of Catholic Sisters in US founded for overseas mission.

Established hospitals and schools all over world.

1955 Founded first racially integrated hospital in America: Queen of the World in Kansas City, Missouri.

Inducted into National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2013 (Seneca Falls, NY)

500 members - nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers, catechists, theologians, agronomists, artists, journalists and community development specialists from 18 nations serving in 25 countries worldwide.

‘Trailblazers in Habits’’

BIRTH CONTROL: MARGARET SANGER (1879-1966)

Daughter [6th of 11 children ] of

Irish-born stonemason Michael

Hennessey Higgins & Anne Purcell,

devoutly Catholic Irish-American.

Pointed to her mother's frequent

pregnancy as cause of her premature

death at age 40.

Observed New York's Lower East

Side poor women suffering pain of

frequent childbirth, miscarriage,

abortion.

Coined “Birth Control”

Challenged 1873 federal Comstock law: banned

dissemination of contraceptive information.

1916 Worked as a nurse & opened first birth control clinic—

jailed.

1921 Established American Birth Control League, precursor

to

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

1936 U.S. Court of Appeals: Physicians exempt from

Comstock Law's ban on importation of birth control

materials. Gave doctors the right to prescribe or distribute

contraceptives.

Early 1950s Secured financial support from Katharine

McCormick, International Harvester heiress for research

that would yield first oral contraceptive, Enovid approved by

FDA, 1960.

1965 Supreme Court: Griswold v. Connecticut : birth control

legal for married couples.

1972 Supreme Court struck down Massachusetts law

prohibiting distributing

contraceptives to unmarried people.

“the most dangerous woman in America”, Cork born Mary Jones (née

Harris) – or Mother Jones Mary Mother Jones, 1837-1930 , from Cork, an Irish-American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent labor and community organizer, child labor activist,& cofounder of Industrial Workers of the World. A child of the Irish famine in Cork who lost her children to yellow fever in Memphis, Tenn., in 1867, and her possessions to great fire in Chicago in 1871.

Labor organizer for Knights of Labor and United Mine Workers Union.Organized Children’s March upset about lax enforcement of child labor laws in Pennsylvania, 1903.

When she was condescendingly labeled the “grandmother of all agitators,” in the U.S. Senate, Mother Jones replied that she would someday like to be called “the great-grandmother of all agitators.” MOTHER JONES magazine, established 1970.

Making Peace in Northern Ireland 2 IRISH Women Changing the World – NOBEL

PEACE PRIZE 1977

Mairead Corigan-Maguire and Betty Williams won Nobel Peace Prize for leading peace marches where Catholics and Protestants together protested against violence that was splitting Northern Ireland.

“The voice of women has a special role and a special soul-force in the struggle for a nonviolent world.…

So we are honored, in the name of all women, that women have been honored especially for their part in leading a nonviolent movement for a just and peaceful society….

Because of the role of women over so many centuries in so many different cultures, they have been excluded from what have been called public affairs; for that very reason they have concentrated much more on things close to home...and they have kept far more in touch with the true realities... the realities of giving birth and love….”

Experts from Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

Ireland’s TWO Marys: The Presidents

1990-1997 1997-2011Mary Robinson transformed the office of Uachtaráin na hÉireann and Ireland’s image internationally, a tradition continued by

her successor, Mary McAleese.

Saint Brigid's Prayer (10th century poem attributed to Brigid)

recited by: Nóirín Ní Riain, Irish singer, writer, teacher, theologian

…………I'd give a special welcome to

the women,The three Marys of great

renown.

I'd sit with the men, the women and God

There by the lake of beer.We'd be drinking good

health foreverAnd every drop would be a

prayer.

St. Brigid’s Prayer

I'd like to give a lake of beer to God.

I'd love the heavenly Host to be tippling there For all eternity.

Women played important part in Irish cultural and literary life in 20th century.

Writers & Poets:

Edna O’Brien, Mary Lavan, Jennifer Johnston,

Julia O’Faolain, Eavan Boland,

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill,

Anne Enright, Mary Morresy, Emma Donaghue, Maeve

Binchy, Kate O’Brien, Paula Meehan

Claire Keegan

Contemporary Artists

& Painters

Alice Maher, Kathy Prendergast, Eithne Jordan,

Cecily Brennan, Gwen O’Dowd,

Cathy Carman (sculptor)

Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls & Girls in their Married Bliss were banned,

although very widely read. Authorities accused her of promoting a view of

female sexuality in which women were not potential victims to be protected from the wiles of male seducers but

sexual beings in their own right : “two Irish girls full of yearnings and desire.

Wicked!”

Women Writers

International Festival of Literature

Maeve Binchy: Love of Ireland

Legal status of women in Gaelic society is

unclear. Exaggerated claims have

sometimes been made about degree of power and freedom enjoyed by women in early Irish society.

OLD IRISH TEXT on Place of Women:

1. “Her father has charge over her when she is a girl,

2. her husband when she is a wife, 3. her sons when she is a

[widowed] woman with children, 4. her kin when she is a ‘woman of

the kin’ (i.e. with no other guardian),

5. the Church when she is a woman of the Church (i.e. a nun.)”

Early Irish society was Patriarchal6th to 8th Centuries

Legal and political life governed by men.

Women had no independent legal capacity.

Women could perform no legal act without the permission and authorization of a man or a group of men – father, husband, or sons, the Church.

Early Irish SocietyBREHON LAWS

By 8th century Irish society under the Brehon Laws, although male-dominated allowed women in aristocratic class some freedom, independence& rights to property.

The political power which women exercised was always filtered through their male relatives: father, husband, son, brother.

For the upper classes, marriage was more of a political expedient than a personal commitment.

Brehon Laws were in place as the governing rules of civilization from at least 250 A.D. and were the law of the majority of the

island of Ireland until early 1600s.

Women in Early Irish LawSociety was graded according to social class.

A woman's honour price was half that of an equivalent man.

Slaves, male and female, were at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Law for women & non-combatants:

Cáin Adomnáin, 697 AD

It forbade the use of women in warfare and imposed fines for offences against women.

Among the offences: physical violence of several kinds, rape, making a woman pregnant by stealth without contract.

Other offenses: different kinds of sexual harassment and causing embarrassment to a woman by accusing her of unchastity or denying her offspring.

Adomnan's Law of the Innocents F

seventh century law for protection of non-combatants – enacted 697 A.D. at Synod of Birr for Ireland & Scotland. Guaranteed by 90 powerful

rulers and clerics.

Abbott of Iona

Women in Early Irish Law - Cáin Adomnáin, 697 A.D.

There was no coinage as yet. Wealth was measured in cattle.

The unit of currency was a cumal:

1 cumal = three milch [milk] cows .

1. If it be forcible rape of a girl, half of seven cumals [milk cows] for it.

2. If it be the knocking a woman down with intention to injure, one cumal [1 milk cow] and seven ounces for it.

3. If it be [putting] a hand under her clothing to dishonour her, one cumal [1 milk cow] and three ounces for it ...

4. If a woman has been made pregnant through fornication, without contract, without property, without bride-price, without betrothal, full fines for it.

--From translation by Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha in Thomas O'Loughlin (ed.), Adomnán at Birr, AD 697, Dublin, 2001, p. 67.

AÍFE : an Amazonian chieftainess,

‘the hardest woman warrior in the world’, who lived in Alba [Scotland],

according to several early Irish narratives.

Abbott of Iona

Women in Early Irish Law - Cáin Adomnáin, 697 A.D.

•Women murderers, poisoners or burners were to be placed in a boat with one paddle and a bowl of gruel and set adrift.

•A man who killed a woman was to have his right hand and left foot cut off before death.

•The church constantly promoted celibacy for monks and nuns and preached chastity for others, but there were many recorded breaches of the rules of celibacy among the clergy.

•Divorce continued to be practised, at least amongst the Gaelic aristocracy, right down to the seventeenth century, in spite of constant warnings and condemnations.

Women gained more independence gradually under Brehon laws

during early Christian period and gained more control over property.

Abbott of Iona

Women achieve equality. 7th Century

In the course of time,

Position of a woman was made more equal to a man,

Change seems to have taken place relatively rapidly as a result of the natural evolution of society aided by the influence of the church.

By the end of the seventh century the normal type of marriage is a marriage in which both parties, the man and the woman, jointly contribute to the marriage goods.

Each of the partners retains the ultimate ownership of what he or she contributed when married.—land and stock and household equipment.

Qualities most admired : The Three Steadinesses of good womanhood

Most accurate picture of women is

in TRIADS of IRELAND (compiled up to the ninth century):

1. A steady tongue2. A steady virtue,3. A steady housewifery

Feminine beauty does not count in

these texts although theThree Glories of a Gathering are:

a. A beautiful womanb. A good horsec. A swift hound

Irish colleen c. 1890s

Women begin to lose equality after Norman invasion – 1169.

• After Norman invasion of 1169, and the partial conquest and colonization which followed, for the next four centuries two communities existed side by side in Ireland.

• Each had its own legal system (Brehon Laws and English Law) and gradually each society came to know and be influenced by the customs and practice prevailing in the neighboring culture.

• One of the sharpest and most enduring contrasts between them concerned the treatment of women.

• This Norman-English conquest Romanized the early Irish Church and brought about the imposition of English law on Ireland in the early seventeenth century.

• As a result, in its attitude to women and their place in society – as in its attitude to many other matters – modern Ireland enjoys NO continuity with its Gaelic past.