Saturday 26th July: Events at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School.

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Admin

Nearly all events at the Maldron Hotel.

9:30 a.m.

Peter Foynes

Peter Foynes will conduct a heritage stroll in the Shandon Historical Quarter. Peter has lived and worked in Shandon for many years and is very familiar with this historic area with its ancient streetscape, its proud history and its resilient and diverse community. He offers a unique insight into the economic, social and political area and his Saturday morning festival walks around the community are essential to an understanding of the heritage which includes its famous daughter Mary Harris.

Meet outside the Maldron.

11.00 a.m.

Joe Noonan

“Environmental Law & Environmental Justice – are they allies or enemies?’

Joe Noonan is a Solicitor in practice in Cork for 45 years. Carbon dioxide in 1979 was 336 ppm. It is 426 ppm now. His legal work has included some of Cork and Ireland’s most controversial environmental issues, from how we licence and regulate hazardous industrial activities, the assessment of proposals to build a waste incinerator in Cork Harbour, and assisting people driven from their homes by intolerable noise from badly planned wind turbines. Has the law helped or hindered the public on the front line? What is its place in the critically-urgent global and local response to climate change?

Three hundred years ago Jonathan Swift wrote that laws are like cobwebs. They may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets through.

How true is that of an area of law that concerns everyone – the law relating to the environment we depend on for our existence?

12:00 a.m.

Jennie C Stephens

“Climate Justice Here and Now”

Jennie C. Stephens is a feminist climate justice scholar-activist based in Dublin. Her coalition-building work focuses on societal transformation and envisioning a hopeful future for all. She challenges the powerful actors and institutions who have been obstructing transformative climate action for decades and is a member of the Climate Justice Universities Union, a collective leveraging the transformative potential of higher education institutions to accelerate change toward a more just and healthy future. She is the author of Climate Justice and the University (Hopkins University Press, 2024) and Diversifying Power: Why We Need Feminist, Antiracist Leadership on Climate and Energy (Island Press, 2020).

2:00 p.m

Mike Allen

“Housing, Homelessness and the Struggle for Social Justice: A bed for the night.”

Over the last decade, the number of people who are homeless has quadrupled, with people from a far wider range of social background and circumstances becoming homeless, or at risk of losing their homes. Why has this happened? What impact does this have on the men, women and children who experience it? And what are the effects on our wider society? The talk will also set out some of the proposals about what can be done to solve the problem, and look at the various social movements which emerged over time to demand solutions.”

3:00 p.m.

Jack Lane

“Roger Casement-The Real and The Imagined”

Roger Casement remains a compelling figure in Irish history. This year is the 60th anniversary of his re-internment. He has become an icon for many causes. But icons are lifeless things and are deprived of context and thus any real historical meaning. Jack Lane argues that Casement remains highly relevant. After 49 of his 52 years as an active participant and onetime poster boy for the British Empire he became the most dangerous Irishman that the Empire ever faced. That is why he was hanged and that is why there has been a consistent attempt for over 100 years since to traduce his moral significance. Jack will seek to put the record straight.

4:00 p.m.

Anne Twomey

Making Their Mark: Remarkable Cork Women and the contribution they made to Cork and Irish Society.

Anne Twomey will discuss the ground breaking role of four Cork women. Anna Haslam, suffragette leader, feminist and campaigner for political rights for women. Suzanne Rouviere Day, suffragette, writer and novelist who was among the first women to stand for election. Jennie Dowdall the first woman elected Lord Mayor of Cork (1959) and Eileen Desmond, the first female Minister of the senior Government Departments of Health and Social Welfare.

5:00 p.m.

Luke Dineen

“Big Jim Larkin: His Life, Times and Ideology”

Big Jim Larkin lived in a tumultuous world during turbulent times. Like so many other radicals in the early years of the twentieth century, he believed that the dawn of a new age of the people was imminent, one in which the working classes, and not the captains of industry, would control the destinies of nations, including a free and independent Irish Republic.

Central to this vision was his belief in the ideology of syndicalism, the most popular brand of revolutionary socialism until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. This talk will examine the various components of Larkin’s ideology until the 1913 Dublin Lockout, especially the impact that syndicalism had on him.

Note: This talk may take place using Zoom at the venue.

6:15 p.m.

Plaque events and the annual toast

With singers Martin Leahy and Dee Power.

Hear Martin’s new song “Mother Jones” just released.

Followed by the traditional whiskey toast to Mother Jones at her plaque.

Margaret Goulding Buckley…an undaunted spirit who fought for women in a country “that treated them like half-wits”!

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Admin

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.

Festival Programme Thursday 27th July 2023

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Admin

11:00 a.m. Salt of the Earth. (1954) Film – Maldron Hotel.

1:00 p.m. Official Opening by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy and the Cork Ukrainian Choir. Maldron Hotel.

2:30 p.m. Mavis Ramazani – Maldron Hotel.

4.00 p.m. Mick Lynch – Dance Cork Firkin Crane.

7:15 p.m. Anne Twomey & Liz Gillis – Dance Cork Firkin Crane

9:30 p.m. The Cork Singers’ Club. – Maldron Hotel.

“Pathways to Freedom: The Life and Times of Margaret Buckley and the Conlon Sisters.”

Posted on July 10, 2023 by Admin

This presentation is by Anne Twomey of the Shandon Are History Group and will take place in Dance Cork Firkin Crane on Thursday 27^th July at 7.15 pm.

Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group.

Anne’s talk will be followed immediately by historian, Liz Gillis.

Some Background Notes.

The Blarney Street/Sundays Well district is a long established community on the north west of Cork City, bounded on the south by the River Lee and on the north by Blarney Street.

Three extraordinary women from this community who were born a little more than a kilometre from each other; sisters Lil and May Conlon who lived on Blarney Street and later at 92 Sundays Well Road and Margaret Buckley from 12 Winters Hill all contributed enormously to the Irish Revolution. Yet the advent of the Irish Civil War saw them take opposite sides in the savage political schism which followed. The subsequent lives of these women represent a local human microcosm of the bitter split among friends after the War of Independence and the different roads of life subsequently taken by each.

Anne Twomey will examine their journeys.

Margaret Buckley.

“If I were dealing with the Constitution I would have something to say about de Valera’s treating the women of the country as half-wits”
MARGARET BUCKLEY

Born on or around July 28^th 1879, Margaret Goulding became a teacher and joined the various nationalist cultural organizations in Cork operating from An Dún, the cultural fulcrum (this building remains on Fr. Mathew Street, now stands sadly dilapidated) of the pre-revolutionary era in the early 1900s.

When she married Pat Buckley, who worked for the British Custom & Excise and Inland Revenue in Dublin, she left Cork in 1906. Pat Buckley died very young and Margaret became active as a union organiser in the Irish Women Workers Union, where she spent the next four decades. She joined Sinn Fein after the 1916 Rising and returned to Cork for a while to care for her dying father.

During the War of Independence, Margaret served in the Sinn Fein courts in Dublin. Like most Cumann Na mBan members, she opposed the Treaty. She was arrested and spent nine months in jail during the Civil War, when as officer commanding the women prisoners, she witnessed appalling brutality against women in the civil war jails of Kilmainham, Mountjoy and the North Dublin Union. She was eventually released from prison in October 1923.

Layer, in 1938 she published “The Jangle of the Keys” about her time in jail. Having spent time imprisoned in Mountjoy, her lively account of daily life in the North Dublin Union and Kilmainham jails, (republished by Sinn Fein in 2022) is at times tragic, brutal and depressing, yet her humanity, her humour and sense of fun along with her quiet solid leadership marks her out as a formidable, but fair woman who sailed a single minded path in life.

A tall woman with an impressive presence, Bean Uí Bhuachalla became a natural and respected leader. She continued working with Sinn Fein, eventually becoming its President from 1937 until 1950 and worked unceasingly in maintaining and consolidating what had by then become a very small, inward looking organisation.

Margaret’s approach was to keep active, to remain working in the trade union movement and in her political life, she was very efficient at the tasks and usual monotony of a political activist. Her greatest achievement was to ensure the very survival of the near moribund and divided Sinn Fein organisation during a difficult period in the 1940s. Eighty years later, with the Sinn Fein party, today on the verge of attaining political power both in the south and north of Ireland, perhaps the work and resilience of this revolutionary woman from Winter’s Hill in Cork may eventually be fully acknowledged, especially in her native city.

Margaret Buckley was listed as one of the plaintiffs in what has become known as the Sinn Fein funds case which meandered through the Irish courts during the 1940s. Sinn Fein had sought to recover approx. £22,000 (value in 1947) of funds held in trust which had been owned by Sinn Fein in 1922, prior to the Civil War. The case was lost as the court eventually decided that the reconstituted Sinn Fein of 1923 (post Civil War) was not a legal continuation of the 1922 pre Civil War, Sinn Fein. After legal fees and costs of the myriad of lawyers were paid out of the monies held, very little remained.

Throughout her life, Margaret remained very active in defence of social justice issues and exposing the poor working conditions and discrimination against women workers. Her blunt assessment of the 1937 Constitution was that it treated women as “half-wits” and in her ongoing and prolific writings as Margaret Lee and Maggie she severely criticised the treatment of women and worked to highlight the poor social conditions experienced by many ordinary people in the Republic.

Margaret died on 24^th July 1962 and her wish was to be buried in St. Finbarr’s cemetery in Cork.

Lil and May Conlon.

May (Mary) was born on 26^th April 1892, while Lil (Elizabeth) followed less than two years later on 29th March 1894. From an early age both sisters from a family of seven were very close and became active in nationalist circles in Cork. They were present in 1914 at the founding of Cork Cumann Na mBan (C Na mB) and later at the founding of the Shandon branch, which became one of the most active in Ireland. May, known as Bealtaine was appointed branch secretary and was described by her sister as having her finger “on the pulse of all national undertaking and activities throughout these tempestuous years.”

Lil Conlon (Left) and May Conlon (Right).

Unlike the wider national body, the C Na mB organisation in Cork voted to accept the Treaty, which had led to the foundation of the Irish Free State and campaigned actively in support of the Cork politicians who spoke in in favour of it. This split in Cork was particularly bitter and rancorous, with many of those women on opposite sides of the Civil War sadly remaining at loggerheads for the rest of their lives.

Lil and May always defended the women who took the pro-treaty side. Lil later worked as a civil servant in Dublin and was subsequently employed on the clerical staff at University College Cork, where her brother Sean taught Irish and served on the governing body of the college. Both continued to be active in Catholic Church support bodies, charity works and were firm supporters of the GAA in Cork.

Back in 2008, a phone call from a Conlon relation cleaning out the old family home in Sundays Well, to the Cork City Museum led to the discovery of a large cache of archives belonging to Lil Conlon, including leaflets, correspondence and the original drafts of her 1969 book, “Cumann Na mBan & the Woman of Ireland 1913-1925.”

She said that this book did not purport to be a history but “simply a pot-pourri of bitter sweet memories”.

This treasure trove of material is available to view online at

https://www.corkcity.ie/corkcityco/en/cork-public-museum/learn/online-resources/the%20conlon%20collection.html

Having suffered from bad health for many years, May had passed away earlier in September 1946 aged just 54. Lil died at the North Infirmary Hospital on Thursday 27^th October 1983 and both are buried in Kilcrea cemetery, near Ovens, County Cork.

Day 2 of the Online Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2021.

Posted on November 26, 2021 by Admin

Why not forget Black Friday and click on www.corkcommunitytv.ie

Friday 25th November.

2:00 pm. The highlights of the past ten years of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festivals.

7:00 pm. Tadhg Barry Remembered. A documentary by Cork Council of Trade Unions and Frameworks Films.

8:00 pm. Interview with Dr. Donal Ó Drisceoil, author of Utter Disloyalist: Tadhg Barry and the Irish Revolution.

The official launch of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2021 took place at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon last night. The Lord Mayor of Cork represented by Cllr. John Sheehan declared the festival open and stated that he was delighted that the festival had proceeded this year as each event set out to challenge one’s views of history and social issues. Speaker, Anne Twomey attended and participated in a brief Q&A session afterwards in relation to questions about Muriel MacSwiney.

Cllr. John Sheehan, Acting Lord Mayor of Cork.

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2021 Events Schedule.

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Admin

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will take place online on Cork Community Television from Thursday 25th November 2021 until Sunday 28th November 2021. We are hoping to have a number of live events, including Q&A’s with the interviewees as well as some live music at the Maldron Hotel in Shandon during the course of the Festival. These are subject strictly to the Covid 19 regulations specified at the time and the attendance will be limited.

Thursday 25^th November – Sunday 28^th November 2021

Programme of online events on Cork Community Television.

Poster of Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2021. Designed by Shannon Smith.

Thursday 25th November 2021

2:00 pm. The highlights of the 2020 online Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

7.30 pm. Muriel MacSwiney………The Unlikely Revolutionary. An interview with Anne Twomey, historian and teacher, of the Shandon Area History Group.

Friday 26th November 2021

2:00 pm. The highlights of the first ten years of the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals.

7.00 pm. Commemorating the 100^th Anniversary of the death of Tadhg Barry, of Blarney Street.

Tadhg Barry Remembered. Documentary by Cork Council of Trade Unions and Frameworks Films.

8.00 pm. Interview with Dr. Donal O’Drisceoil

Author of Utter Disloyalist: Tadhg Barry and The Irish Revolution.

Saturday 27th November 2021.

2:00 pm. Blood on the Mountain produced by Mari-Lynn Evans.

4:00 pm. Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre produced by Lamprini C Tomas and Nickos Ventouras.

6:00 pm. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America by Rosemary Feurer.

6:30 pm. Interview (zoom) with Mari Steed, Adoption Rights campaigner.

7:00pm. Maureen Considine and Catherine Coffey O’Brien of the Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance, CSSA discuss their effort to safeguard the Bessborough Burial ground.

Maureen Considine and Catherine Coffey O’Brien.

Sunday 28th November 2021

2:00 pm. The Mine Wars produced and directed by Randall MacLowry.

4:00 pm. Mother Jones and Her Children by Frameworks Films.

7:00 pm. Dr. Sean Pettit…….An Extraordinary Teacher with an introduction by Richard T Cooke. This film features Sean’s final presentation “The Cork City of Mary Harris” at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on 29^th July 2016.

8:00 pm. The Songs of Mother Jones.

Featuring Māire Ní Chēilleachair, Karan Casey, William Hammond, Mags Creedon, Richard T Cooke, John Murphy, John & Gearoid Nyhan and Mick Treacy.

These events will feature on Cork Community Television at http://www.corkcommunitytv.ie or Virgin Media Channel 803.

The 2021 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will also include Q&A sessions with the speakers at the Maldron Hotel after the broadcasts on Cork Community Television. The capacity is strictly limited in accordance with the Covid-19 regulations for the safety of participants. Full details on how to attend will be announced later.

What Did the Women Do Anyway?

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Admin

This was a dismissive comment originally made to a founder of Cumann na mBan In Cork, Lil Conlon.

Years later, the comment also annoyed members of the Shandon Area History Group.

The result was Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times published in 2019 by the Shandon Area History Group.

This ground breaking publication reveals some of the hidden pages of the story of eleven Cork women who took part in the War of Independence and Civil War in Cork. Varying from the internationally recognised Mary MacSwiney to the almost invisible Wallace sisters, the stories of these ordinary women remained largely untold until now.

“Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times” by Shandon Area History Group
Nora O’Sullivan
The Wallace Sisters
Anne Twomey
Cork Cumann na mBan
Peg Duggan
Emma Hourigan

As part of the forthcoming Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, a documentary called “What did the Women do Anyway?” featuring a discussion with historian Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group about these remarkable women will be shown as part of the festival’s contribution to the Cork Commemoration 1920-1923.

Filmed by Frameworks Films one can hear of the story of the Wallace Sisters, of the opera singer Kate ‘Birdy’ Conway the issue of violence against women, the failure to acknowledge the womens selfless contribution to the War of Independence and the ongoing efforts to ensure the role of other women such as Muriel Murphy and Nora O’Brein are recognised.

Back in 1949, Tom Barry in his Guerrilla Days in Ireland stated that the women “were a splendid body of young women and their value to the IRA was well appreciated by the enemy” . One may well ask were these women ever really appreciated by the IRA or the leaders of the new Irish State?

The discussion with Anne Twomey, What Did the Women Do Anyway will be available online during the forthcoming 2020 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival (27th-30th November). Links and the full programme of events will appear on www.motherjonescork.com. and Facebook.

Our thanks to the Shandon Area History group for their assistance and for photos. Check out their Facebook page to obtain a copy of the book, Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times.

The remarkable Wallace sisters.

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Admin

Documentary on One – The Little Shop of Secrets by Bill Murphy.Saturday July 18th at 1pm on Radio 1.

In the early decades of the last century two sisters, Nora and Sheila Wallace, ran a small newsagents in the centre of Cork City. However, their customers were unaware that when they bought their Irish Times or Cork Examiner, that this small shop also traded in military secrets during the Irish War of Independence – from deciphering codes, to keeping the inventory of armaments for the Cork No. 1 Brigade, Irish Republican Army.

Síle and Nora Wallace

Sheila and Nora Wallace grew up in rural north Cork, before coming to live and work in Cork City in the 1900s where they rented the premises on Brunswick Street (now St Augustine’s Street) in the centre of the city. On the very narrow street in the shadow of the large St Augustine’s Church, the shop sold newspapers, sweets, cigarettes, magazines and religious items such as statues and rosary beads.

Over the shop the sisters lived in small, meagre quarters. Interested in nationalist and socialist ideals, Sheila and Nora became friendly with figures such and James Connolly and Countess Markievicz. Because of their deep-rooted sense of nationalism, they also came to know prominent local nationalist figures in Cork such as Tomás McCurtain, Terence MacSwiney, Florence O’Donoghue, Seán O’Hegarty, as well as Michael Collins.
As the nationalist movement gained more popularity throughout Ireland, the Wallace Sisters became deeply involved with the Irish Volunteers. After the shutting down of the Cork Volunteers headquarters in Sheares Street in 1917, the Wallaces’ small shop became more than a meeting place for the leadership of the Cork Volunteers. It was essentially the Brigade headquarters where the intelligence and communications activities in the city and county were co-ordinated during the War of Independence.

Records show that Sheila became a Staff Officer in the IRA, making her one of the highest female rank holders in the organisation at the time. Meetings of Cork No. 1 Brigade leadership were held in the kitchen at the back of the shop, where raids and ambushes were planned. Dispatches went through the shop for IRA operations. Spies in the Crown forces were recruited and handled by the Wallaces and British Army codes were deciphered by them. They also kept meticulous records of the armaments and equipment held by the Brigade, effectively acting in the role as quartermasters.

In The Little Shop of Secrets, Bill Murphy – grandnephew to Sheila and Nora Wallace – pieces together the remarkable story of two young women who placed their lives in grave danger by running an intelligence centre, safe house and spy network from their little shop in the centre of Cork City during the War of Independence, right under the noses of the Royal Irish Constabulary and British Crown forces.
Contributors to the documentary include Dr. John Borgonovo and Gabriel Doherty from the History Department in University College Cork, local historians Anne Twomey and Gerry White, Commandant Daniel Ayiotis of the Bureau of Military History, Daniel Breen of Cork Public Museum, Bernadette Wallace – niece to Nora and Sheila Wallace, Ted Murphy – grandnephew to Nora and Sheila Wallace.

Saturday 18^th July, 1pm, RTÉ Radio 1Sunday 19^th July, 7pm, RTÉ Radio1 Narrated by Bill Murphy Produced by Bill Murphy and Sarah Blake www.rte.ie/doconone

Note:On 30th July 2016, Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group gave a talk on “The Wallace Sisters” at the 2016 Spirit of Mother Jones Summer School before a packed audience which included Bernadette Wallace, a niece of the sisters.The remarkable story of the sisters came as a surprise to many who attended, which showed how quietly these two extraordinary women went about their business.

The Extraordinary Wallace Sisters

An Irishman’s Diary about about a republican newsagents in revolution-era Cork.

Miss Mary: the Quiet Heroine! – The Story of Mary Elmes

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Admin

Mary Elmes (1908-2002)

Mary Elmes was born on 5th May 1908 at Cul Greine, 120 Blackrock Road in Cork. Edward Elmes, her father was originally from Waterford and her mother was Elizabeth Waters from Cork. The family ran a pharmacy at 4 Winthrop Street, in the heart of Cork city, were prosperous and lived in Ballintemple near Blackrock. The family had military connections and several relations served in the British Army abroad. Elizabeth Elmes was also friendly with Mary McSwiney having worked together in the Munster Women’s Franchise league. The family business premises appears to have been damaged in the burning of Cork by British soldiers on the night of 11^th December 1920.

Rochelle School around 1930

Mary Elmes attended Rochelle School, on the Old Blackrock Road, now closed and incorporated into Ashton School in Cork. In 1928 she enrolled at Trinity College, Dublin where Mary had an outstanding academic career. Top of her class, she was a scholar in 1931, was awarded a gold medal and gained a first-class degree in Modern Literature (French and Spanish).

In 1935, as a result of her academic achievements, Elmes was awarded a scholarship in International Studies to study at London School of Economics. This was followed with a certificate in International Studies as well as a further scholarship to continue her education in Geneva, Switzerland.

After the completion of her studies, in February 1937, Mary was invited by Sir George Young, a former British diplomat and journalist to join the University of London Ambulance Unit and was sent to a children’s hospital in Almeria in then civil war-torn Spain.

Mary Elmes at Almeria

She ran a children’s hospital in Murcia from May 1937, and worked for a period alongside Dorothy Morris a nurse from New Zealand. January 1938 saw her appointed as administrator to a Quaker established hospital in Alicante. She was not a Quaker herself.

The Quakers looked after victims on both sides of the civil war, however Mary’s work was mainly with Republican children and civilians. The hospital in Alicante came under aerial attack from the Fascist airforce with aircraft provided by Germany and Italy and had to be evacuated. In mid-1938, Mary moved inland to the mountains near Polop where they worked from an abandoned villa for the remainder of the year, caring for over 30 children.

By early 1939, as the Fascists, with superior resources defeated the Republican government and ground out victory, millions of Spanish became refugees in their own country. During the following months, some 500,000 defeated Republicans and their families fled to France.

Spanish children in Quaker run refugee camp, France

Mary eventually left Spain over the border to France in May 1939 and returned home to Cork where she stayed for a month, before volunteering to work in the Spanish refugee camps in the South of France. She worked out of Perpignan for the Quaker led International Relief organisations, distributing aid, supplies clothes and books.

World War 2 was declared on 2^nd September, placing the humanitarian effort in the South of France in jeopardy. Later on 22^nd June 1940, following the invasion of northern France and the fall of Paris, France became divided into the German occupied North and the collaborationist South under the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain.

The Vichy south was flooded this time by refugees from the north of France and again back in Perpignan, Mary found herself in the middle of a new humanitarian disaster. She was increasingly critical at the actions of the Vichy government towards Jews who were being rounded up and placed in concentration camps yet was also trying to prevent the expulsion of the humanitarian agencies, such as those run by the Quakers from the area.

Mary, known as “Miss Mary” to many refugees, worked tirelessly to bring aid to the Rivesaltes camp, local schools and other nearby facilities, where hunger and malnutrition was growing.

Relief organisations, including the Quakers, fearful of their fate, began attempting to get Jewish children out of the camps to America or into local respite homes where they might escape the Vichy authorities. The summer of 1942 saw the beginning of the systematic deportation of all Jews to extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

Clodagh Finn’s book

From August to October 1942, Mary Elmes, with assistance from some colleagues and others, rescued dozens of children from Riversaltes, taking them to safe houses or helping them flee the country altogether. Well aware that she was putting herself at risk, Elmes bravely hid many children in the boot of her car and drove them to safe destinations. She aided many others by securing documents, which allowed them to escape through the underground Resistance networks in Vichy France.

From November 1942 onwards, the Nazi grip of terror tightened. In February 1943, Elmes was arrested on suspicion of aiding the escape of Jews and was imprisoned in Toulouse, later being moved to the notorious Fresnes Prison run by the Gestapo near Paris, where she was incarcerated .She was finally released without charge on 23^rd July 1943. Her own children believe she may have been released after an intervention by Eduard Hempel, the German Ambassador in Dublin.

Paddy Butler’s book

Immediately returning to Perpignan, she continued her humanitarian work for the Quakers until June 1946. She married Roger Danjou and settled into a domestic lifestyle, raised two children, Caroline and Patrick and remained mostly silent about her extraordinary activities over the previous decade. After almost a decade of difficult relief works in two major wars and taking huge personal risks, she lived a quiet life. She refused the Legion d’ Honneur, offered by the French State. Her work still unknown and unrecognized, she died in France on 9^th March 2002 at the age of 93.

Eventually recognition came for her courageous humanitarian work and her efforts to save Jewish children from the Nazi genocide. On 13^th January 2013, she was recognized in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, at Yad Vashem in Israel. Later in February 2019, the Cork City Council voted to name the new pedestrian bridge across the River Lee as the Mary Elmes Bridge.

Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group will tell the story of Mary Elmes at the Firkin Theatre, Shandon on Thursday 1^st August at 7.30. All are welcome.

Sources:

A Time To Risk All by Clodagh Finn. Gill Books 2017

The Extraordinary Story of Mary Elmes…The Irish Oskar Schindler by Paddy Butler. Orpen Press 2017.

La Pasionaria – the story of Dolores Ibárruri

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Admin

On Friday 4^th August at 2.15, local historian, Anne Twomey will speak of the life of Dolores Ibárruri known as “La Pasionaria”, the Passion Flower. This talk forms part of an afternoon and evening of events devoted to an examination of the issues and lessons of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and events devoted to some of the Irish people who fought in the International Brigades.

Dolores Ibárruri was born into a mining family in Gallarta in the Basque country in Northern Spain in 1895. In a curious similarity to the early life personal tragedy of Mother Jones, Dolores trained as a dressmaker, poverty prevented her from becoming a teacher although she almost completed her studies. She married a miner, Julian Ruiz from Asturias in 1915. They had six children, five girls and a boy including triplets, however four of those died soon after birth, while her son Ruben died during the Second World War in the Soviet Union.

Monument in Glasgow — Monument to Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria) in Glasgow by sculptor Arthur Dooley (Photo Ciaran Roarty via Wikimedia Commons)

Born a Catholic, she became a member of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) in 1921 and wrote extensively in miners’ newspapers. Becoming more prominent in the party she was known for her fiery and passionate speeches, which aroused great loyalty among her supporters. Dolores was elected from the Asturias to the Spanish parliament (the Cortes) in 1936.

She was centrally involved in many of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War. Known as La Pasionaria (The Passion Flower) she oversaw the emergence of the Spanish Communist Party into a central role during the war. She was to the forefront in the struggles with the anarchists during the initial stages of the war. Fleeing Spain in 1939, she eventually arrived in the Soviet Union where she assisted with the war effort through the 40s. She lived in Moscow and was well regarded and close to the Soviet regime, including Stalin. Serving as General Secretary of the PCE for many years from 1942 to 1960, she stayed in the Soviet Union until 1977 and met all the major communist and socialist leaders across the world.

In the meantime Dolores was involved in establishing an underground resistance in Spain to Franco, which achieved little success in the initial decades due to much internal conflict and the total control of Spain by the Franco government. On her return to Spain, she was re-elected to Parliament but suffered from ill-health and retired from active politics. She died in November 1989, aged 93 years. (the same age as Mother Jones!)

She is best remembered publicly for her broadcast on Madrid Radio in November 1936, where in another echo of history she exhorted the defenders of the besieged city that “It is better to die on your feet than live for ever on your knees! They shall not pass!” “No Pasarán” became the battle-cry of Madrid and the besieged Republic. Later in October 1938, she delivered her passionate message of appreciation to the departing members of the International Brigades which is still much quoted.

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival

Shandon, Cork City, Ireland

Tag Archives: Anne Twomey