FRIENDS AND former colleagues have paid tribute to June Levine, the Dublin-born feminist, writer and journalist who has died at the age of 76.
Levine is the author of two best-selling books: Sisters, which recorded her involvement in the women's movement in the 1960s and 1970s; and Lyn, written with prostitute Lyn Madden, which told Ms Madden's story and related her abuse by murderer John Cullen.
She played a central role in the rise of the Irish women's movement and, with journalists Nell McCafferty and Mary Kenny and others, travelled to Northern Ireland on the "Contraceptive Train" in 1971, importing condoms at a time when they were banned in the Republic.
McCafferty yesterday described Ms Levine as "astonishingly brave". Novelist Colm Tóibín said Levine was "one of the old school of Irish journalists who wrote because they wanted to change things . . . She was the most generous person, brilliant company. Her hospitality was like no one else's."
RTÉ Authority chairwoman Mary Finan, in whose house the launch party for Sisters was held, described her as "a friend in the fullest sense".
Caitríona Crowe, the archivist and former president of the Women's History Association, said Sisters was one of the crucial sources for women's history in Ireland. "As well as delivering a fantastic account of the women's movement, it gave us the untold story of growing up as a Jewish woman in Dublin."
Levine began her career in journalism in The Irish Times; her byline first appeared in the paper in 1949 on articles about fashion, Jewish refugees in Ireland and the wives of circus performers. In the 1950s she emigrated, having married a Jewish medical student from Canada, Kenneth Mesbur, at the age of 19.
Sisters describes her breakdown while in Canada, including a spell in hospital where she received electric shock treatment, and the break-up of her marriage. She returned to Ireland with her three children, Adam, Diane and Mike, in the mid-1960s. She worked as a journalist and became immersed in the women's movement.
She worked for a wide variety of publications, edited the Irish Women's Journal and worked as a researcher for the Late Late Show.
Sisters, published in 1982, also describes the abortion Levine had in Britain in 1967; in 1983 there was controversy when RTÉ banned discussion of the issue.
Lyn began life in 1983 as an article for Magill magazine, then edited by Tóibín, and was published in book form four years later. She published a novel, A Season of Weddings, in 1992 and edited part of the Field Day Anthology of Irish Women's Writing.
Levine lived with psychiatrist Prof Ivor Browne for over 30 years; they married in 1999. Her remains will be cremated at Mount Jerome cemetery tomorrow.
