County Limerick talk to pay tribute to tireless campaigner for women’s vote

THIS year marks the centenary of women’s right to vote in Ireland and the woman who played a significant part in achieving that goal was Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.

Hanna, a daughter of Limerick parents, was an ardent promoter of women’s rights and campaigned tirelessly for women’s suffrage and for equality between men and women.

Her life and times will be the theme of a special illustrated talk in Newcastle West library on Friday, May 25 by her granddaughter, Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington who has continued the family’s radical tradition. She herself won a landmark Equality Tribunal case in 2014 in which her claim against her employer, NUI Galway, that she had been discriminated against on gender grounds in a promotion round was upheld.

Dr Micheline’s grandmother Hanna  had been politically conscious from childhood, born as she was, the daughter of Irish MP, David Sheehy from Broadford and Elizabeth McCoy from Ballyhahill. David Sheehy was involved in the ill-fated Fenian Rising of 1867, was a supporter of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and became MP for Galway and later for South Meath but took the side against  Parnell in the split. An uncle of Hanna’s, Fr Eugene Sheehy was known as the Land League priest.

Ironically, Hanna’s father had consistently voted against all female suffrage bills, something which was to shape Hanna’s view that women were marginalised within social movements.

Hanna was a founder member of the Irish Women’s Franchise League in 1909 with her husband, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins.

Along with other women, in 1912, Hanna took part in a demonstration in Dublin in protest against the exclusion of voting rights for women in the third Home Rule Bill. She threw rocks at windows in Dublin Castle, a symbolic smashing of male rule and was arrested and subsequently lost her job.

She was also a founder member of the Irish Women Workers Union and wrote regularly for the Irish Citizen newspaper which she and her husband established as an organ for progressive ideas. She was anti-Treaty but was unhappy with De Valera’s  1937 Constitution. She believed constitution maintained the same boundaries for women that the previous ruling elites had and in no way reflected the progressive efforts made by her and her comrades to increase opportunities for women in Ireland and bring them out of the confines of the kitchen.

Hanna felt that independence had been won for Ireland in name, but the wives, daughters and sisters of Ireland saw little change in their prospects.

The event on Friday, May 25 will bring Hanna’s ideas and role to vivid life. It begins with a reception at 7.30pm in the Newcastle West Library and Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington will speak promptly at 8pm.

The event is free and open to all.