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IT WILL BE 100 years tomorrow since the legislation passed that gave Irish women over 30 the right to vote.
And one place where we can dig out information about life in Ireland at that time is the National Library of Ireland archives on Dublin’s Kildare St. To step inside the library is to step back in time, both literally and figuratively, to an Ireland of old – the stunning building is a showcase for the best of Irish craftsmanship at the time it was built.
To get a sense on what’s on offer there, we visited the archives and spoke to the NLI’s outreach officer, Katherine McSharry, in the reading room, where she showed us letters from Countess Markievicz, a diary written by suffragist Rosamund Jacob, and flyers for the 1918 election which followed the legislation which gave women the vote.
“1918 was an incredibly dramatic year in Irish life,” explained McSharry. “If you picture it, there’s a world war still waging, a world war that has drawn in many thousands of Irish soldiers. And there are plans to conscript Irish men and bring them into the British army to continue fighting that war.
No one knows at the beginning of the year that the war is going to end in November, so it’s dragged on for an enormous length of time. There’s rumours and anxiety about plots – about German plots to overthrow British rule in Ireland, and quite a number of senior leaders are in prison. So you have people like Countess Markievicz, Kathleen Clarke – who’s the widow of Tom Clarke who signed the proclamation – they’re in prison.
“And you have this push for a huge new way of doing politics – so shifting away from the Irish parliamentary party which has been the representative party of a lot of Ireland for a long time towards Sinn Féin,” said McSharry. “And you have the introduction of votes for women over 30 – so a huge addition to the electorate.
“Put all those things together, you have a really dramatic year.”
Among the items in the archives are letters from Countess Constance Markievicz, which were written while she was in Holloway Prison in the UK.
“One of the fascinating things is she’s writing these letters to her own sister and while she is in prison, we have one here in December 1918,” says McSharry (you can see the letter in the video above). “She becomes the first woman to be elected to the British parliament – she never takes her seat – and she does that while she’s in prison. She’s elected in Dublin while she’s in prison in the UK.”
The letters detail how she got paper for letter-writing in prison – a big deal – but also show how she marked her change in status. One from December 1918 is signed ‘Constance Markievicz IRA’, but in January 1919 she signs a letter ‘Constance Markievicz MP’.
The letters and items acquired by the NLI related to 1918 don’t just reflect the political changes of 1918, but also the social ones. ”I think that’s one of the really interesting things about detailed letters and diaries that people keep at this time,” says McSharry.
“You do get that contrast or that combination of their involvement in political affairs, and a lot of information about that, but you also find out the books that they’re reading and who they’re interested in, and there’s always little bits of gossip and ‘have you heard from this person’ or ‘can you give my regards to that person’.”
Where does the information at the NLI archives come from? ”The National Library gets material in a variety of different ways – some of it is donated, some of it we acquire by purchase and one of the things the national Library does is we acquire these things over time,” explained McSharry.
“Something that might have seemed less significant at the time we get it comes to have more and more significance as you come close to an event. So anything that we have that’s to do with 1918 this year is becoming very fascinating.”
The archives give us information on what happened 100 years ago, but also the fact that there were many differing viewpoints on national events.
“When I think about archives and libraries, I often think of Oscar Wilde’s line about saying ‘the truth is never pure and rarely simple’,” said McSharry.
“And I think that’s what you find in the archives, is that there are always multiple versions of any story, so you can find the facts… but you also find multiple facts, different perspectives, different voices and archives allow us to challenge our own simple view of what history is like, but they also allow us to hear different voices.”
“One of the great things I think that libraries and archives do and the work that we do here in the National Library, is to keep those voices so that when people are ready to hear them they are in the archives and ready to emerge.” You can view the digitised National Library of Ireland archives here.
Tomorrow, we look at a timeline of how votes for women came to be a reality.
Written by Aoife Barry and posted on TheJournal.ie
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Respect for this. But i guarantee you not one person believed when they were voting that subsequent FF or FF members would not only never run candidates in the North, but would ostracis parties that did and followed the example of those who got elected in 1918.
@Cal Mooney:
Yawn
@Cal Mooney: Voters in the North to this day follow the example layed down by the first Dail in 1918 and refuse to swear allegiance to the queen of england. FFG make jokes and condemnations of the voters North if the border on this Island week in and week out.
@Cal Mooney: Well said Cal. FF and FG don’t want a United Ireland because politically, they have the most to lose, and consequently SF will make huge gains as an all Ireland party.
@Patrick Nolan: Funny you said use that comment, one english MP is recorded in Westminster as having used exactly that phrase in response to a debate about the Irish rising up.
@European Bob: jaysus! fg were the ones that copped on that looking pat the allegiance nonsense would lead to a fully independent country. today we have a made up, copy, party that still can’t see that a bit of compromise to absolute opposites works. we have a complete independent country, that is willing to be united. the only stumbling block is the psychotic minority of SF supporters who just cannot see that being good to unionists would bring a United Ireland faster than any hatred. I would never vote for them, but can you at least acknowledge that here in Ireland, our parties have actually delivered a few country
@Gulliver Foyle: what a load of codswhallop. Being good to unionists? Some reciprocation would be nice but here we have a party in the DUP trying to destroy the GFA through their unrealistic brexit demands. Privately they want a hard border, make no mistake about that.
@Gulliver Foyle: a unionist by definition wants to retain the union. So how can a unionist remain loyal to the union and support a United Ireland?
@Gulliver Foyle: unionism is an ideology not a political position. Like in a fundamentalist religion, it’s adherents will fight to the death to defend it. Hence the phrases ‘no surrender’ and ‘never, never, never’.
The bottom line in Irish mathematics and in true island wide democracy is that 26 +6 = 1.
Anything other than this is the scourge of gerrymandering and the scar of partition.
Wexford 4 in a row in football
@Paul Carew:
At last, someone with their priorities sorted!!
1918 was a great year for women it held out some hope some possibility. Sad that the ideals of 1916 cherishing women was reversed or ignored by the reprobates who founded the free state and their catholic masters. As for Fianna fail enough said. 100 years on it is desparetly damning that the successors of FF/FG still control and hold back this nation. 1918 was full of possibilities, 100 years on and nothing really of substance has changed.
@Austin Rock: I have a spare wheel for your band wagon , just saying.
@Austin Rock: the only reason FF and FG have been in power consistently for 100 years is because that is simply what the electorate want. Collectively speaking, our parents, grandparents and ourselves vote then in every time because all of the other parties individually and combined are not offering what the populace wants. When the other parties put forward something the majority of the people want they will be elected in enough numbers to form a government.
Your article missed the biggest event and biggest killer of 1918, the “Spanish Flu” .It killed more that the war and impacter every district in the country, killing rich and poor alike.
Both my grandparents John and Hanna Williams died in their late thirties in the first week of November 1918. It had less impact on the older generation as this is believed to be because if you has lived in the late 1880s and had contacted a less verilent strain of flu acquired immunity against the Spanish Flu of 1918. It was name the Spanish Flu as Spain being neutral during WWI didn’t have military censorship and reported the flu as being widespread in Spain.
@Charles Williams: I read an article somewhere which said the reason why it killed healthy adults and the young and old survived, was it provoked a strong reaction in the immune system which overwhelmed the body, whereas in the young and old the immune system is comparetively weak.
Limerick won the hurling that year
Seminole time in irish political evolution,everyone as equals. Now some are more equal than others.
100 years of shite since. Be better voting for Dustin the Turkey than any of the 160 odd dopes we’ve been lumbered with.
have your say