Despite being a minority in Irish politics, women have consistently made their mark by courageously challenging male-dominated powers. Kathleen Clarke, the first female Lord Mayor of Dublin, highlighted this impact in 1939 when she fulfilled a council ambition that spanned two decades. She removed a portrait of Queen Victoria from the Mansion House entrance hall, along with other depictions of British royalty found within her official residence. These were subsequently displayed outside, to the surprise of the public. In her autobiography, she mentioned receiving a letter from an overjoyed Irish emigrant in the US, who questioned why she hadn’t burnt the picture.
Kathleen’s husband, Tom Clarke, was the first individual to sign the 1916 Proclamation. She frequently clashed with party leader Éamon de Valera during her time in Fianna Fáil, once refusing his suggestion to withdraw her candidacy for the Free State Senate as he felt too many women were being proposed by the party. Throughout her tenure as a senator, she often opposed the leadership, particularly condemning de Valera’s provisions in the 1937 Constitution that she believed were to the detriment of women’s rights.
A disagreement arose again with de Valera in 1940. Kathleen waged, albeit unsuccessfully, an appeal for leniency for Patrick McGrath, a comrade from the 1916 rebellion who had been sentenced to death in a court without a jury. When McGrath was executed, she commanded blinds to be closed at the Mansion House and for the flag to be flown at half-mast. Eventually, feeling disillusioned, she departed from Fianna Fáil, later reflecting on the transformation she observed in men who experienced a vestige of power, namely their resulting intolerance. In 1948, she sought election through Seán MacBride’s Clann na Poblachta, though was unsuccessful, during a brief period when it seemed the party could usurp Fianna Fáil’s pro-Republican backing.
In the progressive era of the late 1960s, the Labour Party in Ireland leaned towards the left relative to the national standard. They pledged to contest the authority the Catholic church had over education and healthcare. During the yearly gathering in 1969, they put forward an idea to bring forward contraception legislation. This, however, provoked controversy. Oliver J Flanagan of Fine Gael condemned this as an affront to the Pope. Mid Cork TD Eileen Desmond, a staunch proponent of women’s rights, expressed her support for the party’s advocacy of social change, saying as a ‘Catholic mother’, she found no fault with it.
Nonetheless, Labour’s electoral slogan that year, “The seventies will be socialist”, turned out to be a misfire. Contrary to widespread predictions of considerable gains, the party’s popular vote decreased, and Desmond lost her parliamentary seat. She reclaimed her TD role in 1973 when the Dáil was overwhelmingly male, and proceeded to join the European Parliament representing Munster in 1979.
By 1981, she stepped up as the minister for health and social welfare under the first coalition government led by Garret FitzGerald, marking a record as the third and most senior woman minister appointed at that time.
During FitzGerald’s subsequent term as prime minister in 1983, Monica Barnes of Fine Gael, along with Desmond, conveyed their opposition to the eighth constitutional amendment, which asserted the unborn’s right to life. Taking the stance that this ‘anti-abortion’ amendment was in fact anti-woman. Two years after, Barnes brought a decisive influence in passing a contraceptive Bill by a small majority in Dáil. As an unconventional Fine Gael member, Barnes was a common face in street marches and protests at embassies. When authorities held 33 female protesters in Dublin’s Bridewell during Ronald Reagan’s Irish visit, Barnes was the solitary TD to pay them a visit.
In 1993, a bill was introduced by Fianna Fáil’s justice minister, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, to decriminalise relations between men of consenting age. The antiquated law, which had stood for over 130 years since the tenure of Queen Victoria, was finally eradicated as she aimed to put an end to this particular human rights restriction. Despite facing backlash in the Dáil for the “decriminalisation of homosexuality”, she found support from Eamon Gilmore, a Democratic Left opposition TD with whom she shared Galwegian roots. Gilmore acknowledged the challenges she faced from both “intolerant groups” and dissident members of her own party.
During this period, Mary Robinson occupied Áras an Uachtaráin, marking the end of Fianna Fáil’s presidential authority, which she disrupted three years prior. Known to have braved severe denigration from the narrow-minded in her past, she recalled instances of being advised to stay home and care for her newborn while on the campaign trail for a general election.
Regrettably, the situation has worsened in recent times as political women increasingly face anonymous online slander. Notwithstanding the present state of affairs, the pioneering efforts of these women in the political landscape bring forward an intriguing query: would our political environment see marked improvements if women made up at least half of our portion of elected officials?