Category Archives: Lectures

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival – Timetable Friday 3rd August

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Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School

programme 2018.

 

Friday 3rd August

 

11.00.    Dr Emily E. LB. Twarog

“The Female Vote: Why gender matters in American politics!”

Cathedral Visitor Centre

1.00.     Music at the Maldron. Jimmy Crowley.

2.30.    Professor Louise Ryan

              “Votes for All Women? The tricky issue of class politics in the Irish suffrage movement” 

 

              Cathedral Visitor Centre.

 

7.30       Mary Manning.

“Striking Back……..The story of the Dunnes Stores Workers strike”

Firkin Theatre

9.30      John Nyhan and Mick Treacy present the songs of Ewan McColl at the Maldron Bar

“Understanding the Rise of Trumpism among the ‘Great-Grand Children of Mother Jones”

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Dr John Barimo will speak at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and summer school on Wednesday evening 1st August at 4pm at the Cathedral Visitor Centre, Roman Street, Cork.

Dr. John Barimo

Dr. John Barimo

He will address the following topic:

“Understanding the Rise of Trumpism among the ‘Great-Grand Children of Mother Jones”

This lecture will focus the role played by many of Mother Jones “Progeny” in Appalachian coal country that became staunch supporters of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign even though it appeared in many ways to work against their own self interests.  These so-called great-grandchildren are current miners or other manual workers and their extended families, many of whom are still bound by the cycle of poverty.  There will be a background brief on a few quarks of the US electoral process and an examination of the socioeconomic profile of the people of Appalachia.

We will also explore effects, influences and scope of social media and misinformation campaigns, and the use of effective branding and marketing campaigns.  Lastly, we will look at the shifts in public sentiments during the campaign and voter sentiment in Pennsylvania which was the key swing state with struggling coal and steel industries.  A few film clips will be embedded in the presentation which will highlight public sentiments in Appalachia along with the struggles encountered by these individuals.

Dr Barimo is an educator, coastal ecologist, writer, advocate of social justice and adventurer. He earned a doctorate in Marine Biology and subsequently lectured at socially disadvantaged third level institutions in the US Virgin Islands and Miami. He has recently come to Cork and lives in the Shandon Historic Quarter.

John will speak at 4pm at the Cathedral Visitor Centre on Wednesday 1st August.

All welcome.

 

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“The Female Vote: Why Gender Matters in American Politics” – Emily Twarog

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Emily E.LB Twarog will appear at the Spirit of Mother Jones summer school on Friday morning 11am at the Cathedral Visitor Centre.

Emily Twarog
Emily Twarog

For many people in Ireland, American politics remain a mystery, we do not understand how Donald J Trump could be elected President of America. Dr Twarog will examine one aspect of the election, why more white women vote Republican and voted for President Donald J Trump.

Emily will address the topic:  “The Female Vote: Why Gender Matters in American Politics”

“You don’t need the vote to raise hell”

Mother Jones

“Throughout the twentieth century, working and middle-class women struggled to collaborate. For many working-class women, Mother Jones’ declaration that “you don’t need the vote to raise hell” rang true far more than Alice Paul’s persistent call for equality through the vote.  This division continues into the twenty-first century as they deepen along multiple identities – racial, class, gender, and educational.

White women repeatedly voted against their own self-interest. Let us run some numbers. In 2004, Republican George W. Bush got 55 percent of the white female vote and Democrat John Kerry got 44 percent in what analysts call a “reverse gender gap” (one working in the GOP’s favor) of 11 points. In 2008, Republican John McCain got 53 percent of the white female vote and Democrat Barack Obama got 46 percent—a gap of 7 points.

Compared with four years earlier, the reverse gender gap remains but decreased by 4 points. Progress? No. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney got 56 percent of the white female vote compared with President Obama who got just 42 percent. Far from narrowing, the reverse gender gap among white women widened to 14 points.

In 2016, despite the presence of a white woman on the ballot, the gap persisted among white women with a staggering 10-point split. Republican Donald Trump got 53 percent of the white female vote and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton got 43 percent of the white female vote. As a whole, white women still opted to vote for someone who not only did not look like them, but was also heard by the entire nation (and beyond) admitting to sexually harassing women.

In my talk, I will examine the complexities of American electoral politics in more depth”.

—

Emily E. LB. Twarog, PhD is Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Labor and Employment Relations Labor Education Program

Affiliate faculty, European Union Center

Affiliate faculty, Women & Gender in Global Perspectives 

Emily is the author of a recent Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth Century America (Oxford University Press) in hardback and e-book. Available Indiebound, Amazon and Powell’s (a union shop).

“Mary, Annie and Muriel MacSwiney – Extraordinary Women in Extraordinary Times”

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Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Croup will speak on Thursday evening 2nd August in the Firkin Crane Theatre at 8pm.

Her topic is “Mary, Annie and Muriel MacSwiney – Extraordinary Women in Extraordinary Times.”

 

MacSwineys Muriel, Mary and Annie MacSwiney

Background general profiles of the MacSwineys.

Annie (left) and Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney was born in Surrey, England in 1872.  She received her early education at St Angela’s school on St. Patrick’s Hill in Cork city. Later she attended Cambridge University in the UK where she obtained her Higher Diploma and worked as a teacher in Farnborough. Following her mother’s death she returned to Cork around 1904 and looked after her younger siblings. Her father had emigrated to Australia and died there in 1895. Initially she took an active interest in the Suffragist movement and later gradually drifted away and as nationalist fervour grew in Cork, she was one of the founders of a Cork branch of Cumann Na mBan, the founding meeting itself taking place in her parlour.

Following the 1916 Rising, she was sacked from St. Angela’s due to her political activities and proceeded to establish St. Ita’s (Scoil ĺte) which was located at 4 Belgrave Place, off Wellington Road in Cork city. The school opened on 4th September 1916, Mary was the principal of the school and taught there for almost three decades. Following the death of her brother Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney on hunger strike in October 1920, she was elected to the Second Dáil for Cork City in May 1921. Later she was elected to the Third Dáil as an anti-treaty candidate and remained an abstentionist TD until 1927 when she was unseated.

Cumann na mBann Members of Cumann na mBan, Cork

She refused to join De Valera’s Fianna Fáil party and never accepted the authority of the Irish government post 1921. She remained a devout Catholic all her life, and had been a member of Third Order of St Benedict from early on in her life after she had decided not to become a nun.  Mary continued teaching until her death on 8th March 1942. She lies in the family grave in St Joseph’s cemetery, Ballyphehane in Cork city.

Her personality was described by Charlotte H. Fallon in a biography of Mary MacSwiney (Soul of Fire, Mercier Press 1986), as “complex and sometimes even contradictory. To those who knew her personally, she was a warm loving woman full of good humour and intelligence”.  Yet Ms Fallon also states the Mary’s “actions and responses were comparatively easy and predictable as she saw things in terms of black and white, right and wrong, with no possibility for various shades of colour or interpretation.”

Her niece Maire MacSwiney Brugha in “History’s Daughter”, (O’Brien Press 2006) described her thus “She had a brilliant intellect, absolute integrity and never wavered in her political principles, no matter at what cost to herself”

 

Annie MacSwiney (Eithne) was younger than Mary, taught English and Maths and had graduated with a degree in Science from Newman College, later University College Dublin (UCD) where she was friendly with Hanna Sheehy Skeffington who also attended the college.  She proceeded to teach in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight prior to 1914. Having taught English to mainly German and Dutch students she remained in contact with many of them throughout her life. Annie returned to Ireland and taught at St Ita’s where she was a highly respected teacher and worked there for her entire life.

The MacSwiney family around 1900

Annie stayed away from public engagements preferring to concentrate on her teaching however she displayed courage when she went on hunger strike for several days in November 1922 outside the gates of Mountjoy Jail while Mary was on hunger strike inside.

She spoke with an “Oxford accent” (as indeed did Mary), was also a devout Catholic and spent much of her time in and around her home at Belgrave Place on the north side of Cork city. She suffered a heart attack in 1953 and died in 1954. Sadly the school to which she had devoted her life, finally closed in June 1954 with many of the junior pupils going to Scoil Mhuire at nearby 2 Sidney Place.

 

 

Muriel MacSwiney Muriel MacSwiney (née Murphy)

Muriel Murphy was born on 7th June 1892 at Carrigmore, in Montenotte, Cork city. She was born into the wealthy Catholic Murphy family, owners of Cork Distillery and Brewery which produced Paddy whiskey and Murphy’s Stout. The youngest in the family, she was educated in an English convent in Sussex where she claimed “she learned literally nothing except how to be a lady”.

Described as a rebellious young woman, there appears to have been much internal Murphy family conflict over her growing new nationalist politics. While visiting Tilly Fleischmann’s home in Cork after Christmas 1915 for a recital, she played the piano to the gathering which included Terence MacSwiney. The latter recited some poems he had composed. Thus began their relationship, which experienced significant opposition from the Murphy family.

Muriel and Terence were married on 9th June 1917 at Bromyard, Herefordshire in the UK where Terence had been sent following the post 1916 roundups by the British authorities. Muriel gave birth to a daughter Máire who was born on 23rd June 1918, while Terence was in Belfast Gaol. Nearly one half of the four years of Terence’s life subsequent to 1916 was spent in prison, he was arrested six times between 1916 and 1920 and he was never at home for more than a few days at a time. (Enduring The Most – The Life and Death of Terence MacSwiney by Francis J. Costello, Brandon Press 1995)

MacSwiney family 1920 Terence and Muriel MacSwiney with their daughter Maire shortly after Terence’s election as Lord Mayor of Cork in 1920.

The events before, during and following the death from hunger strike after 74 days of Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney on 25th October 1920 were traumatic for Muriel. The international impact of MacSwineys death was enormous and Muriel toured America with Mary MacSwiney soon afterwards where both addressed vast crowds. Muriel received the Freedom of New York City in 1922, the first woman to be honoured. However she returned severely exhausted and began to suffer from bouts of depression.

She left Ireland for Europe with her daughter Máire in 1923. Máire spent much of her childhood in Heidelberg in Germany, where she learned German, attended schools and spent long periods without the presence of Muriel. (See History’s Daughter) Then in 1932 she was assisted by Mary MacSwiney to return to Cork where she lived with her aunts at Belgrave Place. Muriel lost a subsequent court custody battle for Máire and in 1934 she disappeared completely from her daughter’s life. Máire later married Ruairí Brugha, son of Cathal Brugha in 1945.

According to Maire, Muriel spent much of her time in Paris where she became involved in left-wing and communist politics. She formed a relationship with a French intellectual

Pierre Kaan Pierre Kaan (1935)

Pierre Kaan and had a daughter Alix on 5th May 1926 in Germany. Pierre Kaan was a writer and a member of the French Communist Party who later played an active role in the French Resistance and was deputy to Jean Moulin. Kaan was betrayed to the Gestapo, sent to a concentration camp and died later as a result of his treatment on 18th May 1945, aged 43. (See article by Manus O’Riordan, Ballingeary & Inchigeela Historical Society 2016 Journal).

In spite of various efforts over the years to promote a reconciliation between Muriel and the MacSwiney and Murphy families, Muriel refused to reconnect with her daughter or other family relations. Muriel MacSwiney died at Oakwood Hospital, Maidstone on 26th October 1982 at the age of 90, 62 years almost to the day after Terence.

Anne Twomey Cork Historian and author Anne Twomey

 

Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group will tell the extraordinary story of the MacSwiney sisters and their sister-in-law Muriel Murphy MacSwiney at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Thursday 2nd August at 8pm.     

NAMA-land – Frank Connolly’s latest book

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cover
NAMA-land cover

The investigative journalist, Frank Connolly will appear at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and summer school on Saturday morning the 4th August at 11am at the Firkin Theatre.

Mr Connolly will discuss his latest book NAMA-Land: The Inside Story Of Ireland’s Property Sell-Off And The Creation Of A New Elite. (Published by Gill Books 2018).

Frank Connolly
15.7.08. Dublin. FRANK CONNOLLY Writer/Journalist. ©Photo by Derek Speirs

Following the crash of the Celtic Tiger in 2008, the Government established the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) in 2009. It was designed to manage the disastrous position of Ireland’s the “bad” banks which had huge loans outstanding from builders, developers and property speculators resulting from the dramatic fall in value in property prices and their own reckless lending practices.

What followed was the largest transfer of €31.8 billion in loans which had a book value of €74 billion in property assets from public ownership to private interests. This mechanism was designed to save banks, which had huge distressed debts on their books from the collapse by effectively providing them with liquid funds using Government borrowed money following the transfer of their bad assets to NAMA.

Frank Connolly questions why these assets were subsequently disposed of in large bundles to global hedge funds and to vulture funds which “sweat out” their acquisitions in order to maximise their returns on the assets which they have obtained from NAMA at a fraction of their true worth.

protest Dublin
Housing protest

One of the result is that many thousands of Irish people have lost homes and properties as these funds “collect” on their investments which they obtained at a substantial discount. Increasingly long established tenants are being evicted as the vulture funds claim they wish to upgrade these apartments which they acquired as “job-lots” in order to increase substantially the subsequent rents. The State is often left with the rehousing costs of the former tenants.

Nama-Land “will hopefully provide an insight into one of the most significant and far-reaching political and financial experiments in the history of the state, one which will have a profound impact on Irish society and its people for many years to come”.

“Frank Connolly’s careful and penetrating investigative research has exposed critical truths about malfeasance in high places and the often ugly workings of political power generally, actions that have caused great harm to the general population” Noam Chomsky.

Frank Connolly will speak at the Firkin Crane Theatre on Saturday morning 4th August 2018 at 11am. All are welcome.

The story of Thomas “Corkie” Walsh

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Thomas “Corkie” Walsh

The name of Thomas “Corkie” Walsh would not be one which would have been well known in Cork until recently. Certainly at the time of his death in 1918 he was an important figure in Cork trade union and republican circles and his funeral was attended by thousands of people, yet in later years he was largely forgotten.  That changed as the centenary of his death in 2018 led to a number of events to retell the story of Thomas “Corkie” Walsh and honour his memory.  This memory will again be rekindled at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival with a lecture by local historian Luke Dineen.

Thomas Walsh was born in Cork around 1882.  The family had strong Irish republican credentials.  His sister Éibhlis (Elizabeth) married Tomás MacCurtain in 1908.  MacCurtain would go on to lead the Irish Volunteers in Cork in the 1916 Rising although the rebellion never got off the ground in Cork due to contradictory orders from the Volunteer leadership in Dublin.   In 1920 Mac Curtain, then Lord Mayor of Cork , was murdered by British crown forces at his home in Blackpool in front of his wife and family.  Walsh’s sisters Susan and Annie were also living in the MacCurtain home and witnessed the murder of Lord Mayor Mac Curtain.

Mac Curtain family

Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain pictured with his wife Eibhlís and their children shortly before his murder in 1920. Éilis was a sister of Thomas Walsh

Thomas was apprenticed from an early age to become a stone mason, an ancient trade that has existed since before the building of the pyramids or indeed Ireland’s own ancient Newgrange.  He was Cork branch of the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stone layers which today continues having merged into the Building and Allied Trade Union (BATU).

The young Corkman moved to live in Dublin in 1914 and the following year he joined the Irish Citizen Army, which was founded by James Connolly, Big Jim Larkin and Jack White to protect workers who had been attacked by police and military while on picket duty during the 1913 Dublin Lockout.    It was in Dublin that he was given the nickname “Corkie” due to his Cork origins and accent.

funeral

Funeral scene from the Cork Examiner

In 1916 the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army united to launch a rebellion, the Easter Rising,  for Irish independence.  Walsh was one of a number of participants of the Rising who probably fought under the command of Commandant Sean Connolly at Dublin City Hall.   While he was helping other comrades to erect makeshift barricades in preparation for the inevitable arrival of British military, Walsh was recognised by a group of Dublin friends who began to joke and mock him with his nickname “Corkie” and began to kick his barricade.  In order to disperse them he fired a shot in the air which was the first shot fired in Dublin during the Rising although it had been fired without intent to harm.

Walsh was captured by British troops at the City Hall.  He was one of around 100 participants to be sentenced to death but had his sentence commuted to 10 years penal servitude. It is interesting to note that Walsh was one of the very first of the rebels to be court-martialled – just one day after proclamation signatories and leaders Padraig Pearse, Thomas McDonagh and Tom Clarke. This and the severity of his sentence would suggest he was quite an important figure as far as the British were concerned. After a short period of detention in Dublin he and hundreds of others were transferred to Frongoch internment camp in North Wales.  His brother-in-law Tomás MacCurtain along with other Cork Volunteers, was also detained in Frongoch and it is likely that they met there once again.     The conditions in Frongoch were appalling, one of the two camps was a former distillery and it was cold, damp and had inadequate sanitation. Like a number of other internees, Walsh became ill due to the poor conditions and died within a short time of his release, passing away at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin on 2nd March 1918.  He was 36 years of age.  His remains were returned to his native Cork where he was buried at St. Finbarr’s Cemetery after a funeral attended by many thousands of people.

gravestone

Unveiling of new memorial gravestone to Thomas “Corkie” Walsh at St. Finbarr’s Cemetery

Unfortunately over the years Thomas Walsh was largely forgotten about and it took the event of his centenary to bring his memory to the fore again.  Thanks to the diligent research by members of the Cork Masons led by their historian Jim Fahy, the memory of Thomas “Corkie” Walsh has been rekindled and a new limestone gravestone, carved by local mason Tom McCarthy, was officially unveiled on 2nd March 2018, the centenary of Walsh’s death.

medals

Thomas Walsh’s 1916 Rebellion medals

The story of Thomas “Corkie” Walsh will be told by local historian and regular contributor at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Luke Dineen.  The lecture will be delivered on Thursday, 2nd August 2018 at 11.00am at the Cathedral Visitor Centre (at the side of the North Cathedral)

 

 

 

Votes for All Women: the tricky issue of class politics in the Irish suffrage movement

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Louise Ryan will speak at the Spirit of Mother Jones festival and Summer School on Friday afternoon 3rd August at 2.30 at the Cathedral Visitor Centre.

She will address the topic, “Votes for All Women: the tricky issue of class politics in the Irish suffrage movement”.

The Irish citizen

Irish Citizen newspaper

Louise Ryan, originally from Cork, is a graduate of UCC. Louise is a Professor of Sociology, and co-director of the Migration Research Group at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Irish Feminism and the Vote(1996) and (with Margaret Ward) Irish Women and the Vote (2007) as well as numerous academic papers on suffragism in journals including Women’s History Review and Women’s Studies International Forum.

Louise Ryan

Louise Ryan

Her most recent book, Winning the Vote for Women: the Irish Citizen Newspaper and Suffrage Movement in Ireland was published by Four Courts Press in 2018. Louise has appeared on numerous radio programmes and TV documentaries. She also written recent articles about the Irish suffrage movement for the Irish Examiner, Irish Times and Sunday Business Post. Louise has participated in Vote 100 events in Leinster House, The Royal Irish Academy, the House of Commons, Westminster, and Richmond Barracks, Dublin.

The Irish Citizen newspaper was founded by Hanna and Francis Skeffington and was published from 1912 to 1920. This paper provides historians with a “vivid picture” of suffragists’ issues during that period. The newspaper clearly shows that the contributors to the newspaper were concerned not just with the franchise but with a much wider array of issues affecting women generally.

Louise Ryan originally wrote Irish feminism and the vote: an anthology of the Irish Citizen newspaper, 1912-1920 back in 1996 and she has again performed a huge contribution to a more complete understanding of this exciting and turbulent period by republishing an updated and revised edition entitled Winning the Vote for Women: The Irish Citizen Newspaper and Suffrage Movement in Ireland.

Among the many issues debated in the Irish Citizen were the suffragists’ attitudes to work, class, wages and trade unions. It is easy to dismiss the suffragists as middle-class liberals from the leafy suburbs however clearly the movement contained within it a broad spectrum of ideas and views. Suffragists such as Louie Bennett, Winifred Carney, Cissie Cahalan, Meg Connery, Marion Duggan, Mary Galway, Margaret McCoubrey and Marie Johnson raised the issues of wages, exploitation, class and workers’ rights throughout this period and their debates and lively discussions appeared regularly in the pages of the Irish Citizen.

Professor Ryan will examine these differences and contradictions within the suffragist movement and the relationship between class politics and gender politics which are perhaps as relevant today as one hundred years ago.

One Woman’s Fight for Justice

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Louise O'Keeffe

Louise O’Keeffe (Pic:: Courtpix)

Louise O’Keeffe describes herself as an ordinary West Cork woman and mother of two children. Yet this extraordinary woman took the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which in January 2014 found in her favour in a landmark judgement.

Louise had fought a long 20 year battle through  the Irish courts to get civil redress for the sexual abuse which she suffered in Dunderrow Primary School in Co Cork in the early 1970s for which her school principal Leo Hickey was convicted.  In 1998, Mr Hickey was charged with 386 criminal offences of sexual abuse involving 21 former pupils. He pleaded guilty to 21 sample charges and was sent to prison for three years.

Louise was deemed ineligible for compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board and so began her long journey, with the aid of her solicitor Ernest Cantillon, through the High Court, (January 2006), and the Supreme Court, (December 2008), which both ruled that the State was not liable.

Four Courts

The Four Courts, Dublin, seat of the Supreme Court

Following the Supreme Court decision, the State Claims Agency (SCA) wrote to 135 other people around the country who had made similar claims and effectively threatened to pursue them for legal costs if they did not drop their claims immediately. Many did drop their claims through fear of exposure to large legal costs!

Undaunted, Louise bravely continued her fight and on June 16th 2009 (Application no 35810/09) took her case to the ECHR which in January 2014 found the Irish State to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights for its failure to put in place any mechanism of State control to protect Irish schoolchildren from sexual abuse in relation to the abuse Louise had endured in primary school.

ECHR

European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

On the day of the ECHR decision, Louise stated “This is a great day for the children of Ireland”. Two days later the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny on 30th January 2014 apologised to her for the “horrendous experience she had to go through” and he stated that she was “a woman of extraordinary commitment”.

There has been ongoing controversy about the Government’s interpretation of the ECHR’s finding. Many commentators such as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and University College Cork’s Child Law Clinic suggest that the Government’s redress scheme is overly restrictive in its interpretation of the ECHR O’Keeffe finding. This appears to have now made it almost impossible for victims to qualify for redress as the State requires that a prior complaint of abuse must have existed in the school before the claimant was abused.

The Minister for Education appointed Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill as an independent assessor to examine appeals where the State Claims Agency decided claims were ineligible. Justice O’Neill has sought an explanation from the Minister as to whether the rejection by the adversarial SCA, of many claims on the grounds of evidence of prior complaint was consistent with the ECHR O’Keeffe judgement. Very few cases have been settled under the State scheme to date.

Louise O’Keeffe will tell the story of her fight for justice at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on Thursday afternoon 2nd August at 2.30 pm at the Cathedral Visitor Centre. All are welcome.

The story of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington as told by her granddaughter Micheline

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Hanna

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

Dr. Micheline Sheehy Skeffington will speak at the Spirit of Mother Jones summer school on Saturday afternoon 4th August at the Firkin Theatre at 2.30 pm. All are welcome.

Dr Sheehy Skeffington is a plant ecologist with an interest in wetlands, heathlands and peatland. She has carried out research on sustainable farming for conservation and has contributed to many publications in these areas over three decades.

Micheline won a landmark Equality Tribunal case against National University of Ireland, always in 2014 as a result of its discrimination against her over many years in relation to promotion to Senior Lecturer.

Dr. Micheline Sheehy Skeffinton

Micheline will discuss her grandmother Hanna Sheehy Skeffington at the summer school and she will concentrate on the visit by Hanna to America from December 1916 to June 1918. Having recently retraced the footsteps of her grandmother across America 100 years on, Micheline spoke in some of the key cities in which Hanna had spoken. She filmed as she went to create a documentary which will be produced by Loopline Films.

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

Hanna Sheehy was born in Kanturk, Co. Cork on 24th May 1877 to David Sheehy and Bessie (nee McCoy) who were from Co. Limerick. She spent much of her early life in Tipperary. Her father owned a mill near Templemore Co Tipperary and operated bread shops in Thurles and Templemore. She was brought up in very political household which had Fenian connections as both her parents were involved in the rural agitation of the time.

Hanna came to Dublin and received an MA with first class honours in 1902. In 1903 she married Francis Sheehy Skeffington. Hanna and Frank were among the founders of the Irish Women’s Franchise League in 1908 and in subsequent years became increasing active in the suffrage movement and she was imprisoned on a number of occasions. By 1912 they founded the Irish Citizen newspaper along with Margaret and James Cousins, which gave a voice to women involved in the campaign for voting rights and equality.

Both Hanna and Frank remained actively involved in politics, working in the soup kitchens of the 1913 Lockout, supporting the suffrage campaign and as pacifists actively opposing the First World War.  Frank, while out trying to prevent looting in Dublin on 26th April 1916 during the Easter Rising was murdered by Captain Bowen-Colthurst at Portobello Barracks. Hanna’s brother-in-law Tom Kettle was killed at the Somme in September 1916.

Hanna departed for a tour of America with her son Owen in December 1916. She spoke at over 250 meetings explaining the events in Ireland including the murder of her husband. She met US President Woodrow Wilson and even introduced to Henry Ford as well as Mother Jones before

Hanna with her son Owen in 1915

departing from New York on 27th June 1918. Hanna was seen off by Liam Mellows. On her return she was arrested in Dublin and later imprisoned in Holloway Jail before being released after a hunger strike. In the general election of 1918, Hanna had joined Sinn Fein and campaigned for Countess Markievicz, who was the only woman elected in the first election where women over 30 had the vote.

Later, Hanna received a head wound following an assault by the police at a meeting in Dublin where she bravely tried to protect a person who was being clubbed by the police. This incident was vividly described by a very worried Countess Markievicz writing from Cork Prison in August 1919 when describing how Hanna “lost a lot of blood and will have to keep quiet for a bit”.

She was one of just five women elected to Dublin Corporation in 1920. She opposed the new Free State, spending further time in America at the request of Eamon de Valera. At the foundation of Fianna Fail in 1926, she was appointed to the executive of the party. In subsequent years Hanna wrote extensively on women’s rights and campaigned on many issues in addition to travelling to address conferences in Europe. In 1933, she was arrested in Northern Ireland for speaking there in defiance of a banning order and spent over a month in prison.

During the Spanish Civil War she chaired a Women’s Aid Committee for the Spanish Republic. Later she campaigned against the new constitution in 1937 on the basis of how poorly it treated women. On 20th April 1946 Hanna died and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery alongside her husband Frank. Hanna is described on her gravestone as a “feminist, republican, socialist”.

 

 

Hanna’s extraordinary meeting with Mother Jones one hundred years ago in 1918.  

One hundred years ago, in what is a unique coincidence, two Cork born women spoke on the same public platform at a massive trade union protest meeting in San Francisco. This large public meeting took place on the evening of 16th April 1918 at the newly constructed San Francisco Civic Auditorium (still standing today but now known as the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium). San Francisco is Cork’s sister city in America since 1984!

Graham Auditorium, San Francisco

Cork born Mother Jones (1837-1930) spoke passionately in defence of her long-time friend and trade union activist Tom Mooney who had been sentenced to death for the bombing of a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco on 22nd July 1916 in which ten people had been killed. In what was widely considered to be a frame-up, Mooney’s case became a cause celebre for the labour movement. The San Francisco Examiner reported that somewhere between eight and ten thousand Mooney supporters attended this protest meeting and had marched through San Francisco earlier.

Mother Jones was joined on the platform by Cork born Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, and who was in the final stages of a speaking tour of America at the time.

Tom Mooney

Thomas J. Mooney in 1933

Both women supported the petition to seek a retrial for Thomas J Mooney and true to their rebel spirit, they definitely had their say on the night in question and left a lasting impression. The San Francisco Chronicle of the 17th April reported that Hanna was later arrested in San Francisco on 24th April 1918 but the case was dismissed the following day. The Department of Justice were interested in Hanna and agents from the Bureau of Investigation took notes at her meetings.*

Mother Jones spoke at great length regarding Mooney, however her once spell-binding oratory now somewhat dimmed by the toil of her 80 years, could not be heard by sections of the crowd. The packed audience was supportive of the union icon until she apparently condemned the US military for shooting down working men and their families and she then faced some opposition from the crowd.

Recent research by author Elliott Gorn** revealed that this element of her speech was reported to Washington by Lieutenant Rolin G. Watkins of the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division, (Later known after the war as the Bureau of Investigation under J Edgar Hoover). Indeed the Lieutenant also recommended that the Federal Authorities pressure her to stop making speeches. Lieutenant Watkins recommendations remained very much a nonstarter in the case of Mother Jones! By another extraordinary coincidence it seems that both women were being monitored by the American Intelligence Agencies. Mother Jones had also been arrested many times throughout her long career (including three months of incarceration in 1913 where she was interned without trial in Colorado) and indeed she was again arrested in 1919 on several occasions during the steel strike.

The union leader Tom Mooney was finally released from San Quentin in 1939. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington in her memoirs claimed   …”The war is thus often made a pretext for vengeance against the socialist reformer.”  Over the twenty years of his jail term Mooney had been the subject of a worldwide campaign to free him with people such as Lenin and George Bernard Shaw supporting his release.

The Cork Mother Jones Committee will commemorate the historic events of the 16th April 1918 at the  San Francisco auditorium during the forthcoming annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival (August 1st to August 4th 2018) when Dr. Micheline Sheehy Skeffington will give an account of Hanna’s lecture tour of America.

 

Micheline Sheehy Skeffington will discuss her grandmother’s life and activities and present the findings of her recent American visit at the Spirit of Mother Jones summer school on Saturday afternoon 4th August at 2.30 pm at the Firkin Theatre.

*        Hanna Sheehy Skeffington Suffragette And Sinn Feiner, Her Memoirs and Political Writings by Margaret Ward. University College Dublin Press 2017. Page 143.

* *     Mother Jones – The Most Dangerous Woman in America by Elliott J Gorn, Hill and Wang 2001. Notes page 377.

Mary Manning to speak at this year’s Spirit of Mother Jones festival

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Mary Manning, one of the Dunnes Stores Strikers will speak at the Spirit of Mother Jones Summer School on Friday evening 3rd August at the Firkin Theatre in Shandon at 7.30.

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Dunnes Stores strikers Karen Gearon and Mary Manning with the late Nimrod Sejake of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and ANC.

On July 19th 1984, Mary Manning went to work as usual on the cash registers at the Dunnes Stores, Henry Street branch in Dublin. Her union IDATU (Irish Distributive Administrative Trade Union, now Mandate Trade Union) led by Cork born John Mitchell had earlier instructed its union members not to handle South African products.

She describes what happened…

“My palms started sweating as I opened up my cash register. Everything after this happened very quickly. I spotted a middle-aged woman in the distance with two large yellow grapefruits in her basket. My heartbeat increased at the sight of them. I avoided eye-contact and popped my head down straight away. ‘Please don’t come to me, please go to any other till’ I thought to myself but the woman plonked her basket at my till, completely oblivious to the internal crisis unfolding within me.”

That morning, Ms. Manning refused to register the sale of those South African products. She was immediately suspended and another nine of her colleagues joined her on the picket line.

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In her recent book with Sinéad O’Brien “Striking Back – the untold story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker”, published by Collins Press, Mary describes the long months during which she and her union colleagues spent on the picket lines, even as the strike began to generate worldwide publicity.

She describes the ups and downs of the protest and gives a vivid account of the dark days of the protest when the young Dublin women and their colleague Tommy Davis felt very alone. Mary tells of her growing personal commitment to the strike and her increasing political awareness and independence unfolds as the daily grind of the strike continued for almost three years.

 

However the spirits, morale and determination of the strikers remained high in spite of the failure of some fellow workers to support them, personal sacrifices in the midst of a recession and being let down by some of those who should have provided support. Yet as the national support for the strike and widespread opposition to apartheid grew, it led to people such as Seamus Heaney, Christy Moore, Sean McBride Donal Lunny, the incredible Nimrod Sejake and thousands of people joining the strikers on the picket line in Henry Street and other protests in Dublin and elsewhere around the country. The resolve of the strikers began to make international headlines.

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Bishop Desmond Tutu

In July 1985, the strikers attempted to visit South Africa to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, at his invitation, but they were arrested at Jan Smuts Airport, refused entry and banned from the country. On their eventual return to Dublin, the strikers were introduced to the world’s media as “the ten deadliest shop workers in the world” by their union official, the late Brendan Archbold. It proved to be a huge international PR disaster for the apartheid system and the South African government.

As a result of the support for the strike, by April 1987, the Irish government had banned the importation of South African products and later Mary and some of her colleagues finally returned to work.  However as she and Karen Gearon were being treated within Dunnes Stores as the ringleaders of the strike she felt they were being singled out and all aspects of their work questioned and so finally Mary left the company. On the 5th November 1988, she emigrated to Australia, where she spent five years.

Less than six months after his release from prison after 27 years, on 2nd July 1990, Nelson Mandela arrived in Ireland and met the Dunnes Stores Strikers. He praised how the “ young shop workers on Henry Street in Dublin, who in 1984, refused to handle the fruits of apartheid, provided me with great hope during my years of imprisonment and inspiration to millions of South Africans that ordinary people, far away from the crucible of apartheid , cared for our freedom.”  Mary was unable to afford the flight to come back from Australia to meet Nelson Mandela.

On 18th May 2015 a plaque was unveiled on Henry Street, Dublin which commemorates the actions of Mary Manning and her colleagues….. brave and inspiring actions which had a worldwide impact.

 

Mary Manning now (Photo courtesy of Collins PressP

The Dunnes Stores Strikers were Cathryn O’Reilly, Sandra Griffin, Alma Russell, Theresa Mooney, Vonnie Malone, Karen Gearon, Tommy Davis, Michelle Glavin, Liz Deasy and Mary Manning. Brendan Barron was suspended in October 1985 in Crumlin by Dunnes Stores for refusing to handle South African products.

Mary Manning accompanied by Sinéad O’Brien will tell the story of the historic Dunnes Stores Strike at the Firkin Theatre on Friday evening 3rd August. All are welcome.