Sarah-Beth Watkins - Irelands Suffragettes: The Women Who Fought for the Vote

Contents

I would like to thank all those who have helped in my research during the course of writing this book, including the staff of the National Archives and the National Library in Dublin for their kind assistance and the answering of many queries, as well as the staff of the Museum of London and the British Library. In particular, I would like to thank the British Library for permission to quote Kathleen Emersons poems from Holloway Jingles, a Womens Social and Political Union pamphlet compiled by N.A. John.

I would also like to thank the National Archives of Ireland and its director for kind permission to quote from their archived sources and the National Library of Ireland and the Museum of London for permission to reproduce photographic material.

Many thanks also go to Simon and Jill Muggleton for information on their ancestors, the Murphy/Cadiz sisters, and to Elizabeth Crawford, Sandra McAvoy, Una Lawlor and Elizabeth Kyte for helping to point me in the right direction with my research.

Kind regards also go to Dr Louise Ryan for allowing me permission to reproduce paragraphs from the Irish Citizen newspaper taken from her book, Irish Feminism and the Vote .

Last but not least I would like to thank my family for giving me the space and time to mull over my research and for listening to me when I was ranting on about suffragettes!

Irelands Suffragettes is a collection of biographical essays on the main suffragettes who influenced Irelands struggle for womens rights. Many of the women were political activists while others became militant suffragettes between 1912 and 1914. Irish suffragettes were imprisoned for their beliefs in Ireland and the UK as well as being involved in movements across the world, like Margaret Cousins who began her campaign for suffrage in Ireland and continued the fight for womens rights in India.

The suffrage movement in Ireland began in the late 1800s and the first public meeting was held in Dublin in 1870. It was then that women like Anna Haslam and Isabella Tod began to debate what they could do to obtain the vote for the women of Ireland. Up until this time, women had been treated as second-class citizens with barely any rights. They were not allowed to hold public office or vote in parliamentary elections, access to education was limited and they lost the right to own property on marriage, with any assets given to their husbands. Women could be forced to hand over any wages to their husbands and they had no rights where their children were concerned. It was a patriarchal society and it was an unequal world for women. They felt that the time was ripe for change.

The first Irish suffrage organisation, the Dublin Womens Suffrage Association (DWSA), was established in 1876 and it began a process of women working collectively across Ireland towards their aims. In 1898, women were allowed to sit on Rural and Urban District Councils and Town Commissions, but not on County Councils or Borough Councils. In the following elections, over 100 women were elected to these seats. Women had realised that the route to change was through their involvement in politics and this could only occur through having the right to vote.

Suffrage organisations began to spring up, with women getting together across the country to mobilise for access to greater equality. In 1908, the Irish Womens Franchise League (IWFL) was founded and 1911 saw the Irish Womens Suffrage Federation (IWSF) and the Irish Women Workers Union (IWWU) established. Between 1912 and 1914, the suffrage movement in Ireland was at its peak. In November 1912, seventy-one members of the Irish Parliamentary Party voted against the Womens Suffrage Bill and Womens Suffrage Amendments to the Home Rule Bill. The women were furious and decided, for the first time, that constitutional methods for obtaining the vote were not enough. During this two-year period, all the militant action took place and the movement gained publicity and support. But Ireland was a country in turmoil and the political situation was one that the suffragettes fiercely debated, taking sides and arguing over what their priorities were.

Cumann na mBan was founded in 1914 and the Easter Rising occurred in 1916. These were troubled years in Irish history and many of the suffragettes were caught up in the nationalist cause. The struggle of the suffragettes in Ireland was different in that respect to that of the UK; many Irish suffragettes were also included in the struggle for independence and the inclusion of women in the trade union movement. Loyalties were divided and the dispute and discussion that ensued was often played out in the pages of the Irish Citizen , the suffrage newspaper. Today, this newspaper gives us a true testimony of the facts and opinions of the women involved in the suffrage movement, and lets us examine their relationship to nationalism, the labour movement, and each other.

Extension of Franchise poster. ( National Library of Ireland)

The fight for votes for women in Ireland was not easy. Many people were against womens suffrage, feeling they had no place in the political environment and that women would complicate matters if they were more involved in the politics of Ireland. Some nationalists agreed women should have the vote, but only if Ireland was a Free State. The Labour movement supported the right to vote but unionists didnt. This was all complicated by the relationship Ireland had to Britain. For the suffragettes who had often travelled to the UK to attend meetings of the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU), this was never more apparent than when English suffragettes came to Dublin and acted without their knowledge. Many denounced the women and their attack on Prime Minister Asquith but others supported them, especially when they were force-fed in an Irish prison. In contrast, suffragettes in Ulster welcomed their English counterparts when they wanted to take part in more direct militant action and agreed to the WSPUs involvement in the North. The suffrage situation in Ireland became extremely complicated, but through it all women worked diligently to obtain the right to vote and what they felt would be a turning point in womens equality with men.

In 1918, women were allowed to vote for the first time but with conditions. They had to be over 30 and own property or satisfy other qualifications. As we shall see in her biography, Countess de Markievicz was the first woman to be elected to Dail ireann. The right to vote was finally granted in 1922 when all men and women in the Irish Free State over the age of 21 were allowed to vote, six years before the same right was granted to the women of Britain. For all the complications of the Irish suffrage movement, the women had prevailed.