SILE de Valera, the Fianna Fail spokeswoman on Arts, Culture and Heritage, opened a malodorous can of worms when she despatched a press release to the national newspapers last Sunday evening smack in the middle of the long weekend.

It was a blistering missive which, in the space of three succinct paragraphs, tore into the Government (collectively) for "further marginalising women" and in particular, singled out the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins, for his decision to "axe" the Irish Women's Archive and Resource Centre.

When it arrived at this desk, the single fax sheet from Co Clare was still trembling with the thunder behind its sentiments. Take this "The archive only required a small amount of Government support and was a worthy project. Yet, that funding was not forthcoming despite the Labour Party's stated egalitarian principles [my italics]. This attack on the Women's Archive and Resource Centre shows that Labour statements of principles are just humbug, hypocrisy and lip service my italics.

This decision, taken by Michael D. raises serious questions about the Government's claims of taking an inclusive approach to marginalised and disadvantaged groups."

The short term upshot was that located a spokesman for the Minister and put Ms Dev's story to him. He knew nothing. Not off the top of his head anyway. He went off to make a few enquiries.

Meanwhile I tracked down Monica Barnes in the wilds of Johannesburg. The former Fine Gael TD and senior sister of the 1970s women's movement was chief executive of the archive centre until its unexpected financial famine earlier this year. She is currently doing a three month stint with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (one of the many branches of the US Democratic Party). She confirmed Sile de Valera's story and filled in the gaps, from her perspective.

For myself, as a correspondent on women's lives, I have heard sound cases made for a separate archive for women's lives again and again in the past six years. Over and over, women complain that they have been/are being written out of history. One example was in 1991, the 75th anniversary of 1916. At a seminar at Scoil Eanna I remember Dr Margaret McCurtain making a passionate plea for women to go through the dusty suitcases in attics all over the country which, she was convinced, contained letters, diaries and other memorabilia of women's part in this century's history. Unless we knew more about our mothers and grandmothers, we could not properly know ourselves, she said. Following a short news story in this newspaper.

I got a telephone call from a woman in Howth whose late husband's aunt had been active and played a significant part in the 1916 Rising. I visited her and foraged through a brown suitcase full of mellowed letters, clippings, recipes, diaries, and despaired when I had to leave them behind. What to do with such a trove? Where to put its There is much more of the same all over the place.

Barnes came to the archive centre not just with the experience of her own and contemporary women's lives much of which is fast being forgotten but with skills she acquired while working as a TD. Since the late 1980s she had been involved with a committee to mark women's lives with exhibitions, plaque placing and the like, which received much coverage and praise.

So when Barnes took on the cultural stream of archives et al, everybody knew the predictable cawl of preciousness and prissiness would be shed like the morning dew.

Within months, she had established and registered the archive centre as the Irish Women's Archive and Resource Centre Ltd in 1994. She was chief executive and Marie Heaney took on the unpaid job as honorary chairwoman. They had a skeleton staff, with some on short contracts. They got temporary offices in the Coach House in Dublin Castle. From there, they put on their first major exhibition Women, Famine and Emigration A Marriage of Convenience which was compiled by the writer and researcher Mary Jones. It travelled to Belfast, but requests for it from New Zealand, Australia and Canada could not be met because of the strange workings of officialdom.

Meanwhile, the job of funding and establishing the centre was in hand. IWARC got £1,000 from SIPTU which they used for an initial feasibility study. This went to Michael D. He approved £50,000 for them initially followed by £100,000 out of his 1995 budget. They also obtained private funds from companies such as the Bank of Ireland, Tipperary Water and the ESB, which was interested in getting a study done on the revolutionary effects of rural electrification on women's lives. See the way the ordinary things of life, what we take for granted or see as men's stuff, can take on the mantle of culture, arts and women's archives? They drew up a five year feasibility plan and sent it to MDH.

Barnes and Co. were well on the way to breaking old moulds, creating new ones, when the letter from the Minister (MDH) arrived earlier this year, on January 12th. It said they would not get any funding from his department in the 1996 Budget. Using words like "examined in depth" the core strategy" what it said in plain English was that women's stuff could be located in the National Archives and the National Library. Suddenly AWARC was homeless and penniless.

It is things like this that make you wish coffin/colony populating boats were still around. Is it any wonder that the drainage of the Shannon has long passed into Irish mythology? Do you wonder why cows still have TB and vets are still in business?

Probably one of the biggest shocks was that an outfit, calling themselves the Association of Women Historians came out of the woodwork in the preceding months. Their tuppence ha'penny in the whole thing was a submission to MDH saying something like real archives should be run by real academics that the National Archives would be a good idea and more rubbish like that.

Regardless, the Minister took what they had to say into account. As Father Ted would say. "Feck them anyway."

Out in Jo'burg. Monica Barnes is thriving with endless work, meeting people, going places in the new republic. That does not mean, however, that she has forgotten the archive's agenda. If anything she says her new experience has fed her with new energy to carry on the crusade when she returns in mid July.

The Minister's spokesman sent me seven paragraphs of a single spaced account of what happened, when and why. One paragraph reads. "[The Minister] concluded that the interests of access to women's archival material for the future would be best served within the current framework, staffing structures and accommodation provided for the National Archives and National Library". He also told them that they should seek funding from Social Welfare/ Equality and Law Reform/FAS.

The facts from Barnes and the Minister are about the same. What is not included is why MDH could not lift the telephone and tell Monica Barnes what the score was until he dictated his letter on the eve of the 1996 Budget. Barnes said she had always intended getting more than matching funding from private sources.

To the Minister for AC and the G, my message is I do not want my hard earned wages making up the £14 to £16 million for TnaG. I do not want £11/2 million going to L'Imiaginaire Irlandaise, and least of all, £750,000 to the Frankfort Book Fair. Not to mention the smoked salmon for the sandwiches, not to mention the boys in the back room.

Monica Barnes had intended keeping the whole thing under wraps until she got her act together again so I say, "Up Dev" to Sile de Valera for bringing it all to light.