Historian Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group will discuss the contribution of Margaret Goulding Buckley to the fight for Independence and her lifelong activism in representing women workers in the Irish Women Workers Union (IWWU) and her role as President of Sinn Fein.

Anne will speak at the Dance Cork Firkin Theatre on Thursday 25th July.

Anne describes the career of this extraordinary Cork woman:

“Margaret Goulding Buckley was a woman of many parts: teacher,  trade unionist, civil war internee, journalist, political commentator and author, and the first female leader of an Irish political party.

Born in Cork on July 28^th, 1879, Margaret lived her early years on Winter’s Hill near Sunday’s Well. Her nationalism was honed in her home where her parents were ardent Parnellites. In common with many young nationalists of her day, Margaret developed a keen interest in the cultural revival movement in the early 1900s. In 1901 she joined Terence MacSwiney’s Celtic Literary Society in Cork and took part in numerous shows and plays in the City’s operatic & dramatic societies. In 1903 Margaret cut her political teeth when she protested against the Royal visit to Cork by King Edward VII & Queen Alexandra.

Around this time she was also a founding member of An Dún in Queen Street, a theatre and meeting hall that became central to Nationalist political gatherings in Cork City. Margaret was also a founding member of the Cork branch of  Inghinidhe na hÉireann ( Daughters of Ireland) a precursor of Cumann na mBan. Margaret also trained and practised as a teacher on the Northside of Cork City.

1906 was a turning point in her personal life as she married Patrick Buckley from the Marsh area of Cork city. Patrick worked in the British Civil Service in Dublin where he was employed by the Inland Revenue & Customs.

 Margaret and Patrick set up home in Howth in Co. Dublin but her politics became more radical and republican. She was also drawn into the Trade Union movement around the Dublin Lockout 1913. Around this time Patrick’s health deteriorated due to TB .Following the death of Patrick, Margaret moved to Marguerite Road in Glasnevin, and lived there for the rest of her life.

Patrick’s death devastated her and she threw herself into political and social issues. She came to the attention of the Dublin female activists in  Inghinidhe na hEireann and later was involved in the founding of Cumann na mBan in Dublin. Margaret also joined Sinn Fein in its infancy. Margaret was involved in the reorganising of Sinn Fein from 1917 to 1919. She was an active member of the Sinn Fein Courts in Dublin, earning praise from Austin Stack for her administration of the court.

By 1916 Margaret had joined the Irish Women Workers Union with responsibility for domestic workers where she became active in fighting for good wages and fair conditions as a quid pro quo for good service, in an area of employment that was notorious for its exploitation and servile conditions imposed on mainly female employees. Margaret became Secretary to the Irish Branch of the Women’s Federation. 

Over the years she built up great trust among female trade union activists  and became very effective in negotiating, recruiting and organising for the IWWU. In 1920 Margaret  opened an office of the IWWU in North Great George’s Street.

She wrote extensively on the organising of Domestic Servants and worked valiantly to remove the “skivvy” and “ slave labour” image associated with the job. She sought for mutual respect between “Mistress” and “worker”, declaring that

“This is as it should be, it is only an accident, or perhaps the result of a system which makes one woman a mistress and the other a maid”

Her interest in how women were treated in the state developed during the treaty and Civil War where she was deeply concerned about prison conditions for women and set up the Womens Prisoner Defence League in 1922.  Margaret campaigned against the Treaty and allowed her home and trade union office to be used by the anti treaty side. Eventually she was arrested and spent time in 3 different jails,

Mountjoy, Kilmainham and the North Dublin Union. Her eye witness accounts and her own experiences of female imprisonment form the basis of her book The Jangle of the Keys, published in the 1930s. The book highlights the tough regime faced by female prisoners during the Civil War and she outlines the level of physical and verbal abuse faced by the women. She helped expose a darker side to the Civil War that went largely undocumented until the recent decade of commemorations.

During the 1920s and 1930s Margaret remained active in trade union politics and in Sinn Fein. She also supported herself through her journalism where she wrote under the pen name Margaret Lee, in a nod to her home county!. Her many articles were used to hold the Free State government to account for poor social legislation, workers employment rights, employers abuse of the Social Insurance Schemes, bad agricultural practices, emigration. Though she remained friendly with De Valera, she refused to leave Sinn Fein and join Fianna Fail, unwilling to accept the oath as an empty formula to enter the Dail.

 Margaret clashed with DeValera and the 1930s Fianna Fail Government over employment legislation that she saw would be prejudicial to women in the workplace, making them second class citizens to males when it came to payment, social insurance, equal job opportunities. Similarly in 1937 she reacted negatively to Bunreacht na hEireann ,DeValera’s constitution, saying it treated Irish women as “half-wits” and campaigned against its adoption as the new constitution of the state.

Politically wise, Margaret was appointed President of Sinn Fein in 1937, the first female to lead a political party in Ireland. She remained leader until 1949. Her role was really to maintain the party’s existence in the new state, given that its membership had gone to Fianna Fail by the 1930s in great numbers. Its continued abstentionist policy towards the new Dail made Sinn Fein a marginal party with limited resources to survive; nevertheless Margaret’s leadership steadied the ship and ensured its continued existence albeit on the fringes of Irish politics for as long as its abstentionist policy applied.

Margaret retired from politics in 1950 and from her trade union activities in 1958.She was, in many respects, an undaunted spirit working tirelessly for Irish working women’s rights in a country that owed its independence to women like her and yet they had been completely ignored in the social fabric that shaped the new independent state. 

It would be others through the 1970s and future decades that would advance her fight to the next level. Margaret Goulding Buckley died in Dublin in 1962. She requested that she be laid to rest in her home by the Lee. Her wish was granted and Margaret was buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery with full honours rendered by Sinn Fein.”.

Anne Twomey appears with historian Liz Gillis on Thursday evening 25th July at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane. The meeting begins at 7pm. Anne is a member of the Shandon Area History Group. Anne’s book, Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times contributed hugely to our understanding to the active role of women in Cork during the War of Independence.

Now that the Decade of Centenaries is over, (it ceased in 1923), the question of what became of the revolutionary women on both sides of the Civil War upon the formation of the Irish Free State. Both speakers will discuss.