Madam, - I have read with interest recent correspondence dealing on the 1916 Rising, and the supplement with your edition of March 28th. However, I see no reference to Mrs Kathleen Clarke, a Limerick woman who paid a very heavy price because of the support both she and her husband, Tom, gave to the cause of the Republic, and to the principles of the Proclamation.
Neither is there any mention of her autobiography Revolutionary Woman, Kathleen Clarke, 2001, edited by her grandniece Helen Litton.
Her role in the events leading up to the Rising and subsequently was significant. She was a founder member of Cumann na mBan, the women's division of the Irish Volunteers. According to her autobiography she was selected by the Secret Military Council of the Irish Volunteers to be privy to all their decisions, so that, if were arrested, she could pass this information on to the next in command. She was also given the task of setting up the Irish Republican Pensioners Dependant Fund.
Because of her involvement in the pursuit of an Irish Republic, her house was raided again and again. She was in prison in Dublin Castle when she heard news of her husband's imprisonment in Kilmainham prison. A visit was arranged and it was on that visit that she became aware her husband was to be executed, and the following day her only brother Ned was to meet the same fate.
I could not let this opportunity pass without bringing into the public domain her contribution to these momentous events, a contribution acknowledged when Limerick Corporation conferred on her the freedom of the city in 1921. - Yours, etc,
Mrs WIN HARRINGTON, (Former City Cllr), Limerick.
