Stories from International Women's Day

MARCH - SEPTEMBER 2020

STORIES FROM INTERNATIONAL W OasM EN'S DAY told bu AFU participants

This book is dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague, Carmel Conroy

The stories in this magazine were told and written as part of celebrations for International Women’s Day 2020, a joint event between Dublin City University Age-Friendly University and Silver Thread. The writers and storytellers were drawn from staff and students of DCU, participants in the Age-Friendly University programmes and activities, and writers with Silver Thread. They celebrated women who influenced their lives, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, friends, mentors, whose lives were very different from our lives, but whose spirit endures and inspires.

After a series of workshops, our last event in the library of DCU Glasnevin campus was a joyous and celebratory moment, opened by Mairead Hayes, CEO of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament. This publication is introduced by Nora Owen, former TD and Minister for Justice.

Our plans for an exhibition of these stories and photographs were curtailed by Covid-19, but we are both very proud to bring to you a publication of these warm and inspiring stories of lives well lived and fondly remembered.

Christine O’Kelly and Cathy Fowley

CONT ENTS

PAGE 1

FOREWORD

by Nora Owen

PAGE 3

MADGE MORRIS

by Michael Morris

PAGE 5

MARY ANNE O'SHEA

by Gretta Grey

PAGE 7

PHILOMENA CROTTY

by Mary McCarthy

PAGE 9

WHERE WOULD I BE WITHOUT MY MOTHER Anonymous

PAGE 11

MOLLY BRYAN

by Tony Breathnach

PAGE 13

MARGARET SHEA

by Helen Mulhern

PAGE 15

MARY JANE MCWEENEY

by Phyl Costelloe

PAGE 17

EVELYN O'KELLY

by Christine O'Kelly

PAGE 19

MARGARET KIRK

by Mary Lynch

PAGE 21

SHEILA CULLEN

by Leo George Devitt

PAGE 23

ANNIE NEESON

by Lorraine Judge Dunne

PAGE 25

JULIJA RUMBA

by Silvija Jones

PAGE 27

MY AUNT MARY

by Phil Kelly

PAGE 29

LIZZY KATE HACKETT

by Agnes Hackett

PAGE 31

MARY JOSEPHINE COYNE

by Maeve Smith

PAGE 33

MARGARET DAVIN LIEB

by Margie O'Rourke

PAGE 35

KATE GAFFNEY

by Bernadette Spellman

PAGE 37

MOTHER THERESE

by Christine O'Flynn

PAGE 39

PAGE 41

AKRIVI KAKAVOULI VLACHOU

by Stella Vlachou AUNTY KITTY

by Catherine Clancy

PAGE 43

MEG CUSACK

by Frank Man

PAGE 45

MARGARET MARNANE

by Bernie Hogan

PAGE 47

TERESA CLEARY

by Teresa Cleary

PAGE 49

MAY CORBETT

by Catherine Conway

PAGE 51

CLODAGH CAMPBELL

by Iseult Bourke

PAGE 53

BRIGID CONLAN

by Aileen Morrissey

PAGE 55

RITA FITZPATRICK

by Bernice O'Halloran

PAGE 57

SISTER ROSEMARY RSC

by Eithne de Lacy

PAGE 59

“I AM GENERATION EQUALITY: REALISING WOMEN’S RIGHTS”

by Mairead Hayes, CEO, Irish Senior Citizens Parliament

FOREWORD

The essays in this publication are moving tributes to many terrific women from all walks of life. They bear witness to the influence these women have had on our own lives, sometimes without us fully realising this.

It is only as we get a little older we begin to recognise how our mothers and sometimes our grandmothers or our teachers have helped us in our own maturing lives. We don’t always want to accept this and there are times when we don’t want someone to say to you, ‘you are so like your mother’.

Today, we, as women, have so many more rights than those available to many of the people described by the writers here.

PAGE ONE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Fifty years ago, women could not keep their jobs in the public service, they could not collect children’s allowance, they could not sit on juries, they could not get a barring order or protection from a violent partner, and they could not own their family home. All things we now take for granted. Yet despite this lack of rights, we should be proud of the fortitude, resilience, the services provided by so many womenin a wide variety of occupations – home care, schools, farms, services for people with disabilities. It is as a direct result of many of their efforts that we enjoy so many more rights than them. My mother was widowed at 39 years of age with six children aged 6 months to 10 years and fortunately had a training as a Domestic Science teacher and was able to get work. She was a strong resourceful woman and managed to keep her family together which wasn’t always possible in the late 1940s and she became a big influence on, not only her own children, but also on the many students she taught in Cathal Brugha Street College. I know this because I still meet women in their 70s and 80s who tell me proudly they were one of her “girls”.

As a retired politician, I still meet a reluctance in women to get involved in politics, many of whom I know could bring their talents and perspectives to bear on the political stage. Some younger women tell me they do not feel qualified to stand for election and I tell them that the best qualification for politics is your own life’s experience. There are so many more opportunities available now for study and training that were not available to many even as recently as the 80s and 90s. I marvel at the talents and successes of our young Irish actors, musicians, singers, artists, cartoon creators, athletes etc., who will all be the influencers of tomorrow.

Some of the people in this book who had hard lives, little education and went to work at 13 or 14 years of age would never have believed they could be influencers on other people’s lives but here they are being honoured lovingly for the lives they led. Maybe any one of us could be role models for someone asked in future years to write about a person who influenced them, so let us do the best we can now to merit such a place!

Nora Owen

PAGE TWO| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MADGE MORRIS

PAGE THREE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MADGE MORRIS

Margaret Branagan, the second eldest of 16 children of Joe Branagan and Molly Donovan, was born 104 years ago. She began work at 14 pressing ties in Pyms of George’s Street and quickly worked her way up to be a dressmaker. At 15 she changed her name to the then fashionable ‘Madge’, as evidenced by the pencilled scribbles on the back of this photograph, not only because it was fashionable but because ‘Maggie" reflected the poor children in the Magdelene Laundries.

She married Mick Morris in 1938 and they soon went to England where her son Michael was born during the Blitz.

They returned home two years later to Dominick Street and then Finglas.

During her long working life Madge worked for various garment factories as well as working on piecework at home. She cycled from Finglas to Chapelizod every weekday for her work, by way of the Phoenix Park, until finally investing in a little French moped – a VeloSolex.

PAGE FOUR| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

She was a feisty woman who wasn't afraid to speak her mind and let you know what she thought of you, but she was kind to friends and family. Later it emerged that she was a kindly supervisor and would help out the young girls who worked for her. She never raised her hand to discipline her son as he was growing up – it was always a sharp word or a look.

by Michael Morris

MARY ANNE O'SHEA

PAGE FIVE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARY ANNE O'SHEA MaryAnne was a pioneer: she worked and lived in Dublin but when she married my father in 1929, she moved to a very rural part of Wexford, miles from everywhere.

She had to adapt to having none of the 'mod cons' she was used to. She learned to milk a cow, keep chickens and pigs and to get water from a well. She had eight children and reared her family to think for themselves.

She became a widow at age 49, with eight children ranging from 21 years down to 7 years. This was a terrible cross for her to bear, but she did what she always did and got on with life.

When she died in 1987, the priest, Father John Doherty, gave the homily and one sentence has remained with me."She was a woman who allowed her children grow into adults."

PAGE SIX| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

by Gretta Grey

PHILOMENA CROTTY

PAGE SEVEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

PHILOMENA CROTTY My mother was a prolific letter writer.

There was one telephone booth in the village and of course, in times of tragedy, the dreaded telegram. The only way to keep in touch was to write letters. Mam corresponded with her own mother and each of her seven siblings, two of whom were in America.

She wrote to cousins, aunts and uncles in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

She wrote 20-page letters to her college friend Maura, whom she rarely met afterwards because she also married a farmer and moved to the north of Ireland. They traded stories about life on the farm, things the children said or did and how they were growing up; they shared bits and pieces of the latest beauty secrets, gleaned from the Woman’s Way or the Realm or the last ICA meeting, they reveled in local gossip. They could write reams about the antics of the newest kitten or pup and each animal on the farm had a personal name. They corresponded in this fashion for the best part of 75 years. This was my mother’s only outlet to the outside world, as she didn’t drive. I always felt she was imprisoned at the end of the laneway, but she assured me that she was the happiest person alive.

PAGE EIGHT| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

by Mary McCarthy

WHERE WOULD I BE WITHOUT THE LOVING CARE OF MY MOTHER?

PAGE NINE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

My mother approached our Parish Priest, the guards and her doctor for help but they explained a wife was, in the eyes of the law, a ‘chattel’ and they were therefore unable to assist.

Her marriage to my father was "an arranged marriage".

They were introduced to each other just six months before their wedding on Easter Monday, 1916.

He was 34, she was 24. It was the start of a life of absolute misery which was to last 46 years.

The year before I was born, my mother took a civil action against my father, which was settled on the steps of the High Court after an arrangement was agreed between the two sets of families. It was the year of the Eucharistic Congress. I suspect I was the result of the reunion.

My earliest experience of my father’s violence was being caught in a deluge of boiling water from a pot thrown at my Mum. My older sisters and brother suffered regular verbal abuse, but my mother also had to survive physical abuse.

PAGE TEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Our answer was to get out and stay out of the house as much as possible, but we also had to observe the 9 o'clock curfew, which did not apply if we were attending a theatre. So my mother and I went to the Theatre Royal on Fridays and the Queen's on Saturdays, along with visits to the Abbey and to the Gaiety for the Grand Opera seasons.

During the orchestral pieces we both used to dream of happier lives.

Anonymous

MOLLY BRYAN

PAGE ELEVEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MOLLY BRYAN

Molly Bryan was born in 1924, the daughter of an ex-British soldier who had fought in the Great War . Her mother was from Dublin's inner city and worked as a skivvy. She left school at thirteen to work as a cashier in a butcher's shop. She married Richard in 1947 and they had five children.

Richard often had to emigrate to find employment and she was then on her own to take care of five children, managing to keep the family together, to feed and clothe them.

In the 1960s things improved but she remained as strong as ever in fighting for her rights and the rights of her children, no matter if it was church or State she was up against.

When trouble broke out in the north of Ireland, a staunch Nationalist and antipartitionist,she campaigned endlessly.

When she died, her children found letters to and replies from James Callaghan, Senator Edward Kennedy and many other international politicians.

PAGE TWELVE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

She also actively partook in demonstrations against internment outside Long Kesh and on several occasions visited internees there. She joined the Women's Peace Movement and through that made many friends from both sides of the divide. The strong woman was a woman of her time but also a woman far ahead of her time.

by Tony Breathnach

MARGARET SHEA

PAGE THIRTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARGARET SHEA

Margaret Shea was born in 1908 on a farm, the second of 10 children, most of whom spent all or some of their lives in the US. She emigrated in 1925, worked as a housekeeper for a doctor and his family – this picture features their two children, whom she often spoke about. She became a US citizen in 1931, and returned to Ireland in 1936. She married my father in 1937, a marriage which was 'facilitated' by his cousin, who was also a friend of her family. Margaret's savings from her work in America were given to her new family in order to help her husband's brothers and sisters move out of the farm. This was described as her 'fortune'.

She had eight children, 6 boys and 2 girls, and ensured that all got a good education: six of them went on to do their Leaving Certificate, including both girls, which was unusual in 40s/50s Ireland. She encouraged me to go to the US as I was entitled to citizenship through her. I went in 1961, as a citizen, and returned to Ireland in 1965.

PAGE FOURTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

by Helen Mulhern

MARY JANE MCWEENEY

PAGE FIFTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARY JANE MCWEENEY

Mary Jane was the eldest of four, two sisters and a brother. She entered the convent at seventeen. The first order she applied to rejected her as she had no dowry. The second accepted her, and her religious name was Sister Fabian. She trained as a teacher in Ireland and was posted to Johannesburg in South Africa soon afterwards. She stayed there for 23 years without a break. Her letters home were frequent. When my mother got a letter from the postman, she would just look at it for ages before she opened it, then she would quickly scan the many pages to get the gist of it and then read short snatches to us. Mam kept all her letters in a tin box and when we were all in bed, she would go through the precious mail again and again in poor lamplight. I was about 15 when she visited the first time. Our house was scoured and garden walls and outhouses whitewashed.

PAGE SIXTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Sister Fabian came home from South Africa to Falls Road, Belfast in 1984 and I visited her many times there.

She became ill in 1990. I was with her in December that year. She was full of fun. One of the other sisters came in to her room and said "Oh Sister,I prayed that you would die in your sleep" to which Fabian replied "Oh, no! I want to be awake for it."

by Phyl Costelloe

EVELYN O'KELLY

PAGE SEVENTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

EVELYN O'KELLY

This is my mother Evelyn O’Kelly. She married my father when she was just 18 and went on to have eight children in the 40s, 50s and 60s. She lived through a world war, the birth of the State, the threat of nuclear war, nine Presidents of Ireland, two changes of currency and joining the EU. She spent most of those years in her home, washing, cooking, cleaning, reading, mending, making, baking and just being. She had a passion for learning and in later years volunteered in KLEAR helping many adults with literacy.

She never won any awards or accolades but she was a solid presence of calm, comfort and sense.

She passed away peacefully in 2015 leaving a legacy – 8 children, 29 grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild.

A warrior who would walk through fire for her family. - the last of the great Irish Mammies.

PAGE EIGHTEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

by Christine O'Kelly

MARGARET KIRK

PAGE NINETEEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARGARET KIRK

Her real name was Margaret but we called her Maggie. She was my mother’s older sister. Maggie was married to Mick and they had four sons. They had a farm in Co. Monaghan. She always wanted a daughter, so she took me under her wing and treated me like one.

From the age of ten I spent a few weeks of the summer holidays with her family.

I learned so much from her. She loved nature and always had time to point out the different birds and animals to me.

Swallows built nests in the sheds and outhouses. I loved to watch them soaring around the house. Maggie had a theory that when they flew high in the sky it was a sign of good weather but if they flew low, rain was on the way. She was usually right, no need for weather experts.

Maggie had a garden at the back of the house and did most of the work herself, digging and planting. She taught me so much about plants vegetables and flowers. We always picked a bunch of roses for the kitchen table.

PAGE TWENTY| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

One summer she knitted me a blue cardigan. I treasured it and wore it until I grew out of it, and it was passed on to my sister Patricia.

by Mary Lynch

SHEILA CULLEN

PAGE TWENTY-ONE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

SHEILA CULLEN

Their family more or less reared, the hard part of life appeared to be over for them but on the 23rd of February 1966, George Edward, Sheila's husband of 30 years, died suddenly at the age of 56.

Her greatest love throughout her life were her children, 26 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren.

Sheila  was born on the June 1912 in the townland of Lackagh, Monasterevin, Co.Kildare. She was the eldest of 11 children, five boys and six girls. They had a very happy childhood living off the produce of their small farm and turf cut from Umeras Bog. The family lived through the uncertain times of the 1916 rising, the Black and Tans, the war of independence and the Civil War. Sheila came to Dublin at 17 to live with an Aunt and she worked as a nurse in the Verville Retreat House on Vernon Avenue. She married George Edward Devitt in 1936. They came to live in No. I Fingal Avenue, off the front road in Clontarf beside the Yacht Club; here they had a large garden that produced all sorts of vegetables, fruit and which also had a hen run. These, combined with the allotments in St. Anne's Park, together with the availability of coal and driftwood washed ashore on the seafront and North Bull Island, helped to sustain their growing family of six.

PAGE TWENTY-TWO| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

by Leo George Devitt

ANNIE NEESON

PAGE TWENTY-THREE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

ANNIE NEESON

Annie was born in Dublin, on the 13th of September 1911, in the grinding poverty of tenement Dublin.

At the age of seventeen, she was working as a seamstress in Stoneybatter, where she met and married John Judge. Over the next 12 years Annie gave birth to to nine children, losing four of them in infancy to meningitis, scarlet fever, pneumonia.

At 29, Annie was a widow with five young children to support. Every Monday she took in laundry from the local businesses. As soon as the items were washed and ironed, Annie would pack them into bundles and send my father to the local pawnbroker, providing a much needed short term loan. The following Monday, my father was then tasked with redeeming the items before her clients came to collect.

By the time I got to know my grandmother, she had become Nana Judge. She had buried two husbands and secured her independence by working long hours as cleaner with Aer Lingus.

PAGE TWENTY-FOUR| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

By the early sixties she had travelled to every major city in Europe.

For me, she was simply a superhero, more potent than Constance Markievicz, more romantic than Maud Gonne.

by Lorraine Judge Dunne

JULIJA RUMBA

PAGE TWENTY-FIVE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

JULIJA RUMBA

The only other person in the room was Julija, my mother’s teenage cousin, already in bed behind a colourful tartan curtain pulled across for privacy.

I tip-toed across the wooden floor and gently lifted a corner of the curtain.

She was lying on her back, eyes closed, her thick hair spread across her pillow and her hands help in prayer position on her chest. To me she looked like an angel.

Her eyes still closed, she startled me by asking, “what do you want, Silvija?”

Apparently, I had interrupted her night prayers. How could that be? Surely prayers are said on your knees beside the bed. That is how my Mam and Gran taught me to do it.

"Why are you praying lying down?” I asked. “When I talk to Jesus,” she said, “I don’t want to be distracted by my sore knees. I prefer to say my prayer and then lie there, listening to what He will say to me.” “Does Jesus talk to you?” I exclaimed, surprised at what I was hearing.

PAGE TWENTY-SIX| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Then, I remembered that I had seen Gran saying her rosary with her large wooden beads, muttering the same prayer time after time and not listening at all. And as for my Mam, she prayed by not moving her lips. That day I realised that there were different ways of praying and I liked Julija’s method best of all.

by Silvija Jones

MY AUNT MARY

PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

The GPs would get a fee to see the women but were not obliged to attend at the home birth, this role was left to the midwife. It really meant that the midwife was left with total responsibility for the pregnancy, birth and post-natal care. Support and supervision was supposed to be given but in reality they were left on their own.

My aunt Mary was always an inspiration to me. She was a sister of my mother's.

I lived with her for one year when I was aged ten to eleven in Derry City.

Mary was born in 1916, the third eldest of a family of ten – 6 boys and 4 girls.

There were two girls older than her, the eldest of which helped her father on the farm, the second went to work in a shirt factory in Derry and as a result Mary went to work there when she was 18.

She stayed for four then decided she something more, so England and where qualified as a nurse.

or five years and wanted to do she took off for she trained and

There was a shortage of midwifes at the time due to a 1936 Act which stipulated that only trained midwifes could attend at childbirth at home. Mary qualified in midwifery and returned to work in Derry as a District Midwife. This was very strenuous work with the pay fairly low and usually only one day off per month.

In 1946, another Act was introduced which gave free access to all women to doctors (GP) as well as midwifes.

PAGE TWENTY-EIGHT| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

I saw this at first hand when I lived with her, she was on call 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and delivered babies at home all over Derry city to all different families, rich, poor, Catholic or Protestant. She then followed up with post-natal care. The only time a doctor was present for a birth, was if it was anticipated there was going to be a problem and then most of them relied completely on the midwife.

She performed this service throughout the 50s, 60s, until the early 1970s. Then with the introduction of technology to hospitals and the referral of most women to obstetricians, home births were not as frequent. With the advent of the troubles in Derry, which restricted the free movement around the city, she decided to retire. Mary never married, always saying she wanted to be independent.

by Phil Kelly

LIZZIE KATE HACKETT

PAGE TWENTY-NINE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

LIZZIE KATE HACKETT

The sun filtered through the kitchen window, drenching the room in bright spring sunlight, the old vintage radio playing softly in the background, Gay Byrne’s lilting voice announcing his morning show. The gentle heat of the Rayburn wafting through the kitchen, all was in readiness.

The cattle grid at the end of our long winding lane rattled in the morning stillness. Our collie Laddie started up a loud warning bark. Moments later, the second cattle grid to the entrance of the farmhouse rattled and Laddie descended into a frenzied bark at the sight of the strange van invading his precious territory.

Mammy ran from the kitchen, rescuing the newcomer from the snarling dog. A tall dark haired man stepped from the van, but Laddie had now retreated, his job for the morning complete. Elm Bank Hatcheries, Granard, was emblazoned across the side of the van.The young man opened the back of the van and took from it a large brown cardboard box.

PAGE THIRTY| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

We could hear the tiniest “chirp”, “ chirp” sounds and the scurrying of tiny feet inside.

He took the box into the kitchen, opening up its lid and there were the most exquisite little creatures inside, their fine yellow feathers glistening in the sunshine.

by Agnes Hackett

MARY JOSEPHINE COYNE

PAGE THIRTY-ONE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARY JOSEPHINE COYNE Mary Josephine Coyne was born on 7th April 1919 to Annie Mc Hugh and Peter Coyne. Her birth was not announced in the newspapers of the day, but around the Harold’s Cross Cottages and her grandparents’ homes, in the rich pastures of Wilkinstown in Co. Meath and in the little village of Clara in Co.Offaly.

Known as May, she spent her childhood mostly living on the premises of the corner shop of Kenmare and Killarney Parade. She was educated by her parents, then in Gardiner St.National School, Kings Inn, and then a course in Domestic Matters in Cathal Brugha Street.

She married at 27 and was widowed at age of 38. Then, the really hard work began. Grieving, minding, knitting, cooking, cleaning, baking, gardening, praying, visiting, hosting, caring, writing, typing, ironing, dusting, hovering, sweeping, mothering, grieving.

PAGE THIRTY-TWO| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Late into the small hours, May would sit at the dining room table, writing her lists. Lists of shopping, lists of folk who might like a visit, lists of dates, birthdays and anniversaries of weddings and deaths, lists of lists, and not a wasted space on the page, her writing all squashed up.

She lived her life, NOT visible on big committees or Management Boards.

But to me, May, my mother, is as visible in my life and in my heart as the roses I can’t see just now , but I know will bloom when summertime comes.

by Maeve Smith

MARGARET DAVIN LIEB

PAGE THIRTY-THREE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

MARGARET DAVIN LIEB

My mother was an ordinary woman in the sense that she wasn't a scientist, doctor, or celebrity.

But her ordinariness included part-time employment, a loving husband, seven children, a younger brother to raise and nursing her own ill mother. Born on June 10th, 1927, Margaret was the eldest of four children. They lived in a small row home on a very tiny street in South Philadelphia. At the age of ten, she developed epilepsy after hitting her head on an icy street when she fell off of a sled one winter's day. Her education ended at the age of sixteen when she left school to begin work at the Bell Telephone Company.

My parents married in 1949. By 1960, they had 5 children, and were bringing up my uncle after my grandmother’s death. In 1964, I had two more siblings.

When my mother suggested we go to an Open House day at Manor Junior College in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, I was unsure. Going to college was the last thing on my mind, but my mother

PAGE THIRTY-FOUR| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

had the vision of what an education could do. She pushed me to follow the educational road, and I followed.

It was the best push I've ever had. I credit my mother for every success that I've ever had as it was her that instilled in me a hunger for learning and creating.

She is a woman who does miraculous things in the most ordinary way. Like a lot of women, she simply gets on with it.

by Margie O'Rourke

KATE GAFFNEY

PAGE THIRTY-FIVE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

KATE GAFFNEY

‘Only marry for love,’ my mother told me when I was thirteen years old. She had good reason to give me this piece of advice.

Kate went to Edinburgh just before the Second World War and trained to be a nurse. She loved her new life, friends, career and great social life in a beautiful city. On a trip home she received news that would change her life.

Her father had decided it was time to make plans to pass on his farm; Kate, being the eldest, was told that she would marry Tom, her second cousin, and that they would run the farm.

What followed was fifty-two years of grief, loss and loneliness on her father’s farm with a man she never loved. Kate had ten pregnancies in as many years.

Her first two sons were still born, her third son lived but her fourth son only lived for three days. She then had another son and two daughters and three further miscarriages.

PAGE THIRTY-SIX| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Kate toiled night and day on the farm as Tom became a coal miner to get away from the drudgery of working on a small farm. Kate milked cows, saved hay and turf, bought and sold cattle in addition to baking, sewing and knitting in her spare time.

She pined all her life for the loss of the man she loved and for the children she lost. She never had time to grieve or was she ever given the opportunity to do so.

by Bernadette Spellman

MOTHER THERESE

PAGE THIRTY-SEVEN| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Mother Thérèse was an Ursuline nun who taught third class in St. Angela’s College in Cork city. If I had been asked to describe her back then, I would have said she was a small, ‘roundy’ nun. She was a very gentle, happy teacher and her students soaked up all the knowledge she offered.

She brought us a true love of nature and this has stayed with me ever since. She brought a fish tank with two goldfish into the classroom, where they lived in term time and we helped to feed. Another fascinating addition was the only wormery that I have ever seen. It was another fish tank, and in this she put layers of different coloured sand, alternating with layers of soil. Of course, we all feigned noisy horror and disgust when she produced a box of wriggling worms.

Amid our screams, she put them gently on the top layer in the tank, and then a light cover over it.

PAGE THIRTY-EIGHT| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

We checked it very carefully at first, watching how the colours began to be mixed together. I can’t remember how long afterwards it was when she called us up to inspect the tank, and there it was, all mixed together, without a shred of any particular colour showing. My respect for the worms began then and I still find myself apologising if I accidentally injure one when working in the garden.

On fine mornings, once or twice a week, we spent a class out in the garden. There always seemed to be something in bloom to be inspected, both summer and winter. I have often wondered if this was due to Mother Thérèse’s work. She shushed us at times as she showed us a blackbird or robin foraging among the leaves in the garden or got us to listen to birds singing in the branches of a tree.

Mother Thérèse sowed seeds in me of a love of nature and plants and this has been a completely engrossing hobby of mine for over fifty years.

by Christine O'Flynn

AKRIVI KAKAVOULI VLACHOU

PAGE THIRTY-NINE| INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

AKRIVI KAKAVOULI VLACHOU Akrivi is one of three children born into the Nikos Kakavoulis family, the only daughter between two boys. Her dad, my grandfather, was a military policeman, while her mum was at home raising the three kids and caring for all relatives in need; a very strict woman who had barely gone to school, she favoured the two boys which was difficult for Akrivi.

She was an excellent student and entered the Political Sciences Department of the Panteion University in Athens. Then she met my dad, and they got married before she finished her university studies.

She had two children, my brother and myself. Having experienced emotional deprivation from her mum growing up, my mum wanted her children to get as much love and care as possible, and she chose to stay at home. She was always the centre of attention among her friends, because of her strong personality, good heart and great spirit, but the centre of her actions has always been her children.

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My mum has always been my best friend, the person I would go to first for anything I needed to share, ask advice for, and spend time with. My chief really, my leader‌Â

by Stella Vlachou

AUNTIE KITTY

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AUNTIE KITTY

Kitty was born in 1907 and by the time she was two, she had lost both of her parents due to tuberculosis. She came to live with my grandfather, her uncle, and his wife. She became their daughter and a sister to the whole family of nine.

She joined a congregation when my mother was 17. It would be 27 years before she returned home. Family members revealed that when she did, she collapsed in grief. The youngest child was 27 and her sister, my mother, 44. All had a lifetime of which she knew nothing.

Auntie Kitty, as I knew her, came into my life when I was 12 years old. She was then allowed home every 5 years.

I was staying with my granny. We bonded immediately and I came to understand what unconditional love meant in her loving embrace. I think she instinctively knew that it was missing in my life.

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She was strong, loving and very wise.

At a time when women were more or less unacknowledged she was the headmistress of a large school, a feminist who taught me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, to let neither age or being a woman hold you back. Â

by Catherine Clancy

MEG CUSACK

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MEG CUSACK

Margaret was the third eldest child and first daughter of John and Mary Cusack of the Mill Corwillan, but everyone knew her simply as Meg. The first day I met her, I was a 17-yearold long-haired scooter-riding 'mod', whose recent and total obsession had become Meg, her 16 year old daughter and eldest child; from that day, she never made me feel anything but welcome.

At 17, she had been dispatched to Dublin to help out with an uncle’s speakeasy in North Strand. He had seven children under 10; just after another child was born, his wife passed away ''due to complications''. By now the father’s fondness for alcohol was obvious, as was his total inability to cope, and talk turned to possible orphanages. Meg made it very clear that she would never allow this to happen, neither would she allow the children to be separated. Her 12 and 14-hour days were spent cooking, washing, cleaning for all 10, whilst also trying to ensure the running of the speakeasy so that both hunger and creditors were kept from the door.

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She kept this up, without resentment or bitterness, all the time focused on the children’s welfare and wellbeing, an act as unselfish and loving as any I have ever heard or read of.

by Frank Man

MARGARET MARNANE

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MARGARET MARNANE

Margaret Marnane was born in 1925, the oldest of eleven children, whose mother died young. She married Michael, a farmer who lived next door to her house when she was twenty years old. She had six children and reared them whilst at the same time working tirelessly beside her husband on the farm.

A woman of deep faith, she recited the daily Rosary with her family. She was a wonderful and generous cook, and baked bread every day. Her AGA cooker was her pride and joy.

She was a very talented writer, regularly having letters and articles published in The Farmers Journal and Ireland’s Own. Her modesty ensured that her family never knew about it until the cheques arrived in the post for her.

She taught her children about respect for oneself as well as respect, kindness and compassion for others and she led by example of all three. She was our mother.

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by Bernie Hogan

TERESA CLEARY

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TERESA CLEARY

Her stories, and example, of hard work and determination were an inspiration to all her nieces and nephews that she loved so dearly; she had no children of her own.

I still marvel at her, a woman on her own, in the 40s, in New York, in a maledominated society .

My aunt, Teresa Cleary, was a woman before her time. She was born in on 29th February 1904, the second eldest of seven children. Tall, athletic and elegant, she assumed from an early age, the mantle of keeper and carer of her mother and siblings; her father died young, aged 42.

When she left school, she served her time with Richard Alan of Grafton Street, as a fashion buyer. Armed with a glowing reference, she landed on Ellis Island New York in 1938 in the company of her new husband, Jack, who died a few years later from a respiratory illness.

She remained in New York, on her own, and became European Buyer for a famous Fifth Avenue store, Best & Co, next door to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

She would waft in to our home twice a year, beautifully coiffed, immaculately dressed, on a cloud of Helena Rubenstein Blue Grass fragrance, with presents for all, exuding high energy and positivity.

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by Teresa Cleary

MAY CORBETT

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MAY CORBETT

May Corbett was born on 8th May 1910, on the border of Limerick/Tipperary.

Her eldest sister emigrated to America when she was 16 years old, returning 57 years later for the first time with her daughter. She had promised to send the passage for my grandmother, but it never came. Another sister emigrated to join her and never returned either.

When her brother’s wife died in childbirth, the baby survived but the next day he left for England. May never saw or heard from him again, and she reared his daughter until she also left at a young age to join her aunts in America.

May married young and had four children. Three left for England at a young age and made a life over there.

My mother came to Dublin at 19 years old.

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May’s life was one of separations; all the people she loved ended up leaving her, with the exception of my grandfather.

She became bitter – you wouldn’t cross her! Yet she could also be kind and caring. When she smiled, life was good, and she had a wicked sense of humour.

by Catherine Conway

CLODAGH CAMPBELL

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CLODAGH CAMPBELL

Clodagh Campbell was born in Larne in County Antrim in 1921, the eldest of five children. By the age of thirteen, she had lost both parents.

At fifteen, she went to England on her own. She got a job in a circus, preparing a woman without limbs to go on stage.

She lived in her caravan and took care of her. One Sunday, they were noticed at Mass by some nuns, who sent her to a boarding school. From there, she went back to London to train as a nurse. She lived and worked through the Blitz.

During a trip home, she met my father and married him.

She had a sense of social justice. She got involved in The Irish Housewives Association, had various political figures staying in our house, including an activist and her children from Kenya.

She got involved with High Park Convent Orphanage, arranging for two girls to stay with us one weekend every month and one month in the summer.

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She was never afraid to take on the powers that be in Ireland of the 60s. She challenged priests who told her to have more children as her husband had a good salary (she had four).

Educationalists who failed to deliver, chemists who refused prescriptions for fear they might be contraceptive, my mother took them all on.

by Iseult Bourke

BRIGID CONLAN

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BRIGID CONLAN

A Liberty child born in 1926, Brigid Conlan was a very proud Dubliner. By the time Brigid was 25 she had three sons. Her first son, severely disabled after contracting meningitis, spent his young life in full time care and died at the age of seven.

When her third son Bernard arrived, she learnt that he had Down Syndrome and in time realised that he was deaf and nonverbal. In the fifties and sixties, many disabled children with Down Syndrome were placed in institutions, but this would not happen to Bernard.

Brigid spent years fundraising, attending meetings, lobbying and campaigning for the rights of the disabled. Her favourite saying, to anyone who put barriers in her way, was: “There but for fortune go you or I."Â

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by Aileen Morrissey

RITA FITZPATRICK

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RITA FITZPATRICK

Rita was born in West Clare, where her father was a station master for West Clare Railway.

This is a photograph of the Colaiste San Dominic team of 1930, which was one of the best teams at the time. Women were required to play in uniforms and black bloomers down to their knees to maintain their modesty.

My mother (front row right, with hat) was a keen sportswoman, and even though she was only 5 ft tall managed to win two All-Ireland Camogie medals.

The school ceased to play the game during the reign of Archbishop McQuaid as he declared it a sport “unbecoming for ladies.”

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by Bernice O'Halloran

SISTER ROSEMARY RSC

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SISTER ROSEMARY RSC Sr. Rosemary was born in 1931, one of a large family. She entered the Order of the Religious Sisters of Charity in 1963. Her draw was the fourth vow, ‘service to the poor’.

I was twenty- two when she interviewed me for a teaching position in an inner-city secondary school for girls. Looking back, what I remember most was her enthusiastic encouragement and gentle affirmation. She was not a woman who wasted words; she said what she meant; she said what she believed. I have little doubt that I might never have continued teaching if it wasn’t for the start that she gave that young and inexperienced teacher.

A wise pupil, having been asked to define the meaning of the word ‘integrity’, answered, ‘it’s when what’s on the outside is the same as what’s on the inside.' That, for me, describes Sr. Rosemary.

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by Eithne de Lacy

“I AM GENERATION EQUALITY: REALISING WOMEN’S RIGHTS” Focusing on a new generation of women as well as celebrating the lives of women who came before and their creativity in ageing.

Mairead Hayes, CEO, Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, speaking to women in DCU on International Women’s Day 2020.

There is a view that women have come a long way since most of us were young girls, and that is true. We are pleased to celebrate that fact today on International Women’s day as we meet in DCU. In reflecting on, how we can claim to be, and in some eyes how we are Generation Equality, we need to note what we have achieved, celebrate it and then seek to strive to eliminate many of the new and subtle areas where women and their rights are impeded and undermined by new or existing factors ,many of which are impacting in particular on poor and deprived women.

Many battles have been fought and won, including but not limited to women’s bodily integrity, their position in society, that they can vote, serve on juries, have access to contraception, abortion, marry whom they please, are no longer chattels subject to oppressive and strict rules.

Think of those you see and meet every day, they are your friends, your work colleagues, your daughters, your mothers and your lovers. So yes! women have come a long way and some would say we are doing well.

However as you all know that depends on where you started from.

We have won some of the battles and the right to both sing and dance today.

Women have won the right to continue working after marriage and look after their children, some have great partners male and female. Others parent alone, they are great warriors, but we all know of the terror and degradation experienced by women who were not allowed to care for their children in this country for many decades and the lives they and their children were forced to live.

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So you will forgive me for saying that much still remains to be done.

Global movements and displacement, caused by racial or other tensions, are resulting in women, men and children being forced to live in dreadful conditions in camps across the world. These women do not have gender equality, as their gender, rules within their groups and fate forces them into servitude and other forms of degradation.

Recently I learned that period poverty is a big issue worldwide and in Ireland. Girls and women struggle to afford sanitary products. Half of females aged 12-19 in Ireland who were surveyed in 2018 said they were not able to pay for sanitary products during their period. The NWCI, teachers and people working with homeless women and girls confirm that the numbers are growing and as a matter of course they are now supplying sanitary products. In 2019 the Minister for Health set up a committee to examine the matter and bring forward solutions.

The Anthem for this day and for Women’s struggles is the song “Bread and Roses”. For many the word “Bread “can be substituted by any of the struggles women are still experiencing today, even though items such as “sanitary products” do not have the same ring to them. As we reflect on and celebrate our achievements, we must continue to show our solidarity with those women who continue to suffer.

The tyranny of how women were treated and viewed by society has been a feature of life for many years and it is interesting that for women of a certain age in the US the poem “When I am old I shall wear Purple” had such resonance. Is it because for all classes, women were being forced to conform? The poet says, "When I'm old I shall wear a Purple Dress with a Red Hat that doesn’t go”. She is, I feel, encouraging others to share her anticipation and excitement by starting to practise for old age now.

So I say let us all kick off the traces, enjoy the life we want to live now, not wait “until we are Older”. I think of the title of a poem by President Michael D Higgins “When will my time Come?”, and I say: Stop Waiting For Your Time To Come, Put out your hand and take it Now.

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THANKS

THANK YOU TO THE STORYTELLERS, THE MEMORY KEEPERS FOR SHARING WITH US THE EXTRAORDINARY STORIES OF ORDINARY WOMEN...