Century

Vote 100 Timeline

The long road to how women won the right to vote in December 1918

Women on a suffrage march carry 617 arrows, each representing a conviction of a suffragette. Photograph: Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Sat Dec 15 2018 - 01:20

1832: Men only - Great Reform Act restricts parliamentary vote to “male persons”

1866: Great petition - Petition signed by 1,499 women including Irish activist Anna Haslam and 24 other Irish women presented to House of Commons by John Stuart Mill

1867: Still no vote - Second Reform Act increases electorate but excludes women

1872/73: Belfast stirring - North of Ireland Society for Women’s Suffrage established in Belfast by pioneering feminist Isabella Tod

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1876: Dublin joins - Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association established by Anna and Thomas Haslam

1884: First graduates - First nine Irish women graduated from the Royal University of Ireland in 1884

1884: Women still excluded - Third Reform Act increases electorate but women again excluded

1898: Council vote - Local Government (Ireland) Act allows women to vote and run in district council elections

1900: National movement - Inghínidhe na hÉireann, the first independent women’s nationalist organisation in Ireland, is founded by Maud Gonne

Maud Gonne. Photograph courtesy of the Yeats Society of Sligo

1903: Militant campaign - Women’s Social and Political Union is established – militant campaign begins with figures such as Emmeline Pankhurst at the forefront

English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928), is arrested at a demonstration outside Buckingham Palace, London. Photograph: Jimmy Sime/Getty Images

1908: Women’s League - Irish Women’s Franchise League founded under the leadership of Margaret Cousins and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. They adopt some of the militant tactics used in Britain

1910: Black Friday - Hundreds of women are injured when police attack a march on parliament in London on November 18th, 1910

1912: Dublin attack - English suffragettes follow prime minister HH Asquith on his visit to Dublin and are imprisoned for acts of violence

1912: Home Rule - The Home Rule Bill is introduced but there is no vote for women

1913: Hunger strikes - Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-health) Act, called the Cat and Mouse Act, introduced to tackle suffragette hunger strikers

Suffragette being force fed in prison.

1914: Cumann na mBan - Cumann na mBan, an auxiliary to the male-only Irish volunteers, founded in April

1916: Proclamation - Proclamation of the Irish Republic specifically includes Irish women

1918: Vote granted - Representation of the People Act gives the vote to all men over 21 and women over 30 if either the woman or her husband own property and The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act permits women to stand for election

1918: Markievicz elected - Countess Markievicz becomes first woman elected to House of Commons

Countess Constance Markievicz as a captain in the Irish Citizen Army.




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