Putting women in the frame

Constance Markievicz blazed a trail in the first Dáil, unashamedly and unabashedly bullying her way into the cabinet and opening door after door for the many women who have been elected in the years since

KATHY SHERIDAN

THE IMPUDENCE of Constance Markievicz must have been wonderful to behold. Women had hardly won the right to vote (it was granted in 1918 and even then, only females over 30 were trusted with it) when she was elected to the first Dáil, making her the first British, female member of parliament, swiftly followed by her appointment as minister for labour, making her the first woman cabinet minister in western Europe.

Was she grateful? Was she heck. An amazed Kathleen Clarke asked her how she managed it. She bullied them, replied Constance; she told them she had earned the right to be a minister as well as any of the men and was equally fitted for it, educationally and every other way. Furthermore, she threatened, if she was not appointed minister, she would go to the Labour Party.

She was 50 by then and had nothing to prove to anyone. She had been second-in-command to Commdt Michael Mallin during the Easter Rising, was court-martialled and sentenced to death, reprieved, released on general amnesty, then re-arrested, contesting the election from Holloway Prison.

Later she fought against the Treaty, lost her seat and won it again, left Sinn Féin and resigned from Cumann na mBan (the IRA women’s army) – thereby abandoning violence and embracing parliamentary democracy – before joining newly-minted Fianna Fáil in 1926.

This child of privilege – who, as a young woman, had been presented at court to Queen Victoria – was still a member of the Dáil in 1927 when she died in a public ward of Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, supported by her daughter and stepson. According to Women in Parliament: Ireland 1918-2000, by Maedhbh McNamara and Paschal Mooney (from which much of this material is taken), she was given a public funeral “for which the working class people lined the street”.

On December 9th last in the Dáil chamber, Senator Ivana Bacik’s event to mark the 90th anniversary of our first elected woman member with a gathering of former and current female Oireachtas members, reached its high point with a reading by former Independent Senator and Supreme Court Judge, Catherine McGuinness, from some of Markievicz’s timeless speeches.

Markievicz fumed at the perception of woman as “a beautiful houri holding domination by her careful manipulation of her sex and her good looks”. She asserted that “the better ideal for women. . . living in a work-a-day world, would be. . . [to] dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels and gold wands in the bank and buy a revolver. Don’t trust to your ‘feminine charm’ and your capacity for getting on the soft side of men, but take up your responsibilities and be prepared to go your own way, depending for safety on your own courage, your own truth and your own common sense, and not on the problematic chivalry of the men you may meet on the way”.

Markievicz was elected at a time of high expectation for women. However, the ultimate message of last December’s cheerful gathering was a poignant one. The assembly comprised most of the former female Oireachtas members still living, plus most of the current 22 female Dáil members and 13 Senators.

“For once,” said Mary O’Rourke, the Dáil “would look decently filled with women”. Yet between them, they managed to fill less than half the chamber. It was a powerful visual reminder that, of the 4,452 Dáil seats filled since 1918, women have occupied just 219, or 4.9 per cent.

There was never an easy ride, as Markievicz well knew, for politically ambitious women who depended on the chivalry of men. The hostility of most of those early women activists to the Treaty made them easy scapegoats for the brutal Civil War, according to McNamara and Mooney. That negative perception of intransigence and bloody-minded idealism was translated into legislation (supported by many “ordinary” women) that actively discriminated against women, limiting their access to higher civil service posts, jury service, information on birth control and employment in industry.

During the first 50 years, from 1922 to 1972, the average Dáil contained just four women – 3 per cent. After the Republican period, from 1930 to the 1960s came the “vote for the widow” era when, with rare exceptions, the few women elected were widows or relatives of deceased TDs.

They often held several jobs. Margaret Collins-O’Driscoll (the elder sister of Michael Collins and grand-aunt of Nora Owen and Mary Banotti), had 14 children when elected in 1923. She continued working as a primary teacher for the following five years and still managed to hold the record among private members for attendances at divisions.

Maureen “Little Mo” O’Carroll, the first female Labour deputy and first woman Labour Party chief whip, was a mother of nine (with no household help) upon her election in 1954. Selected to run in Dublin North Central to boost the party’s overall vote. On the day of the count she made a First Communion dress for a neighour’s child, cooked dinner for all of her children (the comedian, Brendan, her 10th, was born the following year) before finally setting off to see herself unexpectedly elected.

She was instrumental in having the Ban Gardaí formed (they provided the guard of honour at her funeral) and, with some prescience, also raised concerns in the Dáil about the legal issues surrounding the adoption of Irish babies by couples in the US.

Last December, among some remarkable former and current elected women members in the Dáil chamber, the most senior was former Clann na Poblachta TD, Kathleen O’Connor (now Fitzgerald), who won her Kerry North seat in a 1956 by-election following her father’s death. She had just turned 21 and was too young to vote for herself. Her election brought to six the number of women in the Dáil – hardly a breakthrough, since the same number had been returned in 1921.

In 1981, hopes soared when 11 women stormed into the Dáil, six of them from the Fine Gael party, and seven of them first-timers, including Nuala Fennell, Mary Harney, Nora Owen and Madeleine Taylor-Quinn. Yet, 26 years on, the number stands at just 22, or 13 per cent. As Bacik’s event demonstrated, a true “parity democracy” is a long way off.

But the chamber that day also presented a reminder of undeniable triumphs made flesh: Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, elected to the Dáil in 1975 at the age of 24 and appointed the first woman cabinet minister since Markievicz and, later, the first woman minister for justice; Mary Harney, the first woman tánaiste and first female party leader; Tras Honan, the first woman cathaoirleach of the Seanad, along with other trail-blazers such as Nora Owen, Gemma Hussey, Niamh Bhreathnach, Monica Barnes, Eithne Fitzgerald, Nuala Fennell, Liz McManus, Liz O’Donnell and Mary O’Rourke.

Another distinguished woman, Mary Hanafin, Minister for Social and Family Affairs, was among the glass-half-full contingent : “Yes, there have been only 11 female cabinet ministers, including Countess Markievicz. And yes, there are only 22 of us [in the Dáil],” she said. “But remember – we are 20 per cent of the Cabinet and we control 65 per cent of the Budget. Our influence far outweighs our numbers.”