Authors: Gabriel Doherty
Some leading members of the Dublin Trades Council have been approached regarding the organising of the women workers of Dublin. So far very little encouragement has been offered on this decidedly urgent question. While generally admitting the needs of the unorganised female workers, the male members of the wage earners look with suspicion on their sister slaves and are seemingly loath to offer any practical help.
13
From the early 1900s there were a number of significant developments in the organisation of women workers. The Drapers Assistants’ Association (DAA), formed in 1901 by Michael O’Lehane, admitted both men and women, the first union to do so since the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). Dermot Keogh has observed that by recruiting female members, ‘O’Lehane showed himself to be most clearly liberated from the prejudices of his trade union colleagues’.
14
By 1914 1,400 of the union’s 4,000 members were women.
15
The formation of the Irish Women Workers Union (IWWU) in 1911 followed a successful strike for better pay by 3,000 women at Jacob’s biscuit factory in Dublin in 1911. Delia Larkin was its first secretary, and Jim Larkin its president. During the subsequent Dublin lock-out of 1913, the entire membership of the IWWU came out on strike in support, remaining out for six months. Louie Bennett recalled her clandestine visits to Liberty Hall during that dispute:
At that time I belonged to the respectable middle class and I did not dare admit to my home circle that I had run with the crowd to hear Jim Larkin, and crept like a culprit into Liberty Hall to see Madame Markievicz in a big overall, with sleeves rolled up, presiding over a cauldron of stew, surrounded by a crowd of gaunt women and children carrying bowls and cans.
16
In 1915, Helena Molony took over Delia Larkin’s role in the IWWU. Molony, feminist, separatist and officer in the Irish Citizen Army, worked closely with James Connolly in promoting the IWWU, and in organising a women’s co-op run from Liberty Hall. Shortly before the 1916 Rising Molony sought the help of suffragist Louie Bennett in re-organising the IWWU. Following Molony’s request, Bennett had a ‘warm discussion’ with Connolly during which she argued against his mixing of nationalist and labour ideals. Although anxious to help, Bennett made it clear that as a pacifist she could not support any organisation threatening force.
17
Imprisoned after the Rising of 1916, Molony made a further appeal to Bennett for help with the IWWU. This time Bennett responded positively, and in August 1916 she and Helen Chenevix attended the Trade Union Congress in Sligo. From that time she became identified with the work of the IWWU, an association that would continue for the next forty years. Molony re-joined the union executive following her release from prison. Together Bennett, Chenevix and Molony would form a formidable triumvirate on behalf of women workers.
How did the political wing of the labour movement view feminist ideals and co-operation with the suffrage movement? At the 1912 Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) a motion demanding adult suffrage, proposed by Larkin and seconded by William O’Brien, exposed the divisions beneath the surface. One delegate agreed that a woman’s status as a wage earner should be raised, but feared that granting the vote would ‘tend to take away from the peace of the home’ resulting in ‘the destruction of that nobility of character for which their women were prized’
18
. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington noted that ‘organised labour wanted women to help them press for adult suffrage, ridiculing women’s suffrage as “votes for ladies”’.
19
There was some justification for that accusation, as the existing franchise was property based and, if extended, would only benefit middle class women. At the 1914 ITUC there was disagreement on whether a deputation from the IWRL should be admitted to speak on the issue of women’s suffrage. James Larkin objected to such a deputation, arguing that ‘the suffrage could be used for or against their class’. James Connolly, while noting his preference for the militant wing of suffragism, argued that ‘he was out to give women the vote, even if they used it against him as a human right’.
20
Consistently in the pages of the
Irish Citizen
and at meetings of the IWFL and the IWRL the economic position of women was equated with their voteless condition. Connolly continued this theme when he told a meeting of the IWFL:
It was because women workers had no vote that they had not the safeguards even of the laws passed for their protection because these were ignored. They had women working for wages on which a man could not keep a dog. Men’s conditions, bad as they were, had been improved because of the vote.
21
Connolly, described by the
Irish Citizen
as ‘the soundest and most thorough going feminist among all the Irish Labour men’ was a crucial link between the two movements. At the most difficult time for Irish suffragists – following the 1912 attempts by English suffragettes to attack Prime Minister Asquith during his home rule ‘promotional’ visit to Dublin – Connolly showed his support for the women’s movement by travelling from Belfast to speak at the weekly public meeting of the IWFL, an action long and greatly appreciated by the women. During the following weeks when there was much violence against IWFL public meetings, members of his union, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), often protected suffragettes from attack. A regular speaker at suffrage meetings north and south, Connolly told the 1913 ITUC that until women were made equal politically they could only be half free. At a meeting held in the Albert Hall to generate solidarity for the Dublin strikers and to demand the release of the imprisoned Larkin, Connolly was loudly cheered when he declared that he stood for opposition to the domination of nation over nation, class over class, and sex over sex.
22
In Belfast later, he stressed that agitation for the vote should be accompanied by the more immediate prospect of better working conditions and pay. The
Irish Worker
reported on a series of meetings held to discuss Connolly’s ideas, noting that ‘labour ideas and ideals are entering in and these meetings will make excellent propaganda’.
23
But propaganda for whom? While individuals within the IWFL and the IWSF brought both groups closer to alliance with Labour, this was due to the beliefs of individual members rather than official policy. Some Belfast suffragists feared that too close an association with Labour might sidetrack their campaign. The question of women’s co-operation and involvement with other contemporary movements would prove problematic in Ireland as it had done elsewhere.
In
The reconquest of Ireland
Connolly wrote that ‘the women’s cause is felt by all labour men and women as their cause … the labour cause has not more earnest and whole hearted supporters than the militant women’.
24
Certainly, the involvement of young, socialist-oriented feminists in the suffrage campaign from 1908 onwards coincided with a recognition by some labour leaders of common disabilities shared by men and women. As the women’s movement organised and radicalised, labour leaders saw its potential as an ally. The most positive influence of both groups can be found in the wording of the 1916 Proclamation, which was addressed to both Irish men and women and guaranteed equal rights and opportunities to all citizens. The other main area of influence between the two groups was the movement of women from the suffrage into the labour movement.
F
EMINISM AND NATIONALISM
In states struggling for national self-determination feminists often subordinated their own aims to those of the parent nationalist movement.
25
By 1913 there were eighteen suffrage societies in Ireland, catering for women of varying political, social and religious backgrounds. Yet, as was pointed out in the
Irish Citizen
that year, there was still no distinct nationalist women’s franchise association. Existing suffrage groups had been consistently criticised as being mere branches of English societies. While there were some instances where this was the case, generally the newer groups – particularly the IWFL and the IWSF – recognised the need to assert their Irishness and independence from English groups. In fact, many prominent nationalist women were at some stage involved in the suffrage campaign, particularly in the 1908–14 period. Included in this group were women such as Constance Markievicz, Agnes O’Farrelly, Rosamund Jacob, Dr Kathleen Lynn, Mary MacSwiney and Jenny Wyse Power. Initially two strands of nationalism developed amongst such women:
(1) those that supported home rule for Ireland and fought for the recognition of women as voters within the home rule bill; and (2) those who sought complete independence for Ireland, believing that the suffrage struggle should wait until this was achieved. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, writing in
Bean na hÉireann
in 1909 on ‘Sinn Féin and Irishwomen’, addressed both groups when she commented that ‘until the parliamentarian and the Sinn Féin woman alike possess the vote, the keystone of citizenship, she will count but little with either party’.
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The ‘parliamentarian’ woman, who supported the home rule cause, often deliberately refrained from involvement in the suffrage campaign for fear of damaging the attainment of home rule. However, with home rule apparently assured in 1914, some women felt more confident in airing suffrage views. One such woman, Elizabeth Bloxham, now appealed to John Redmond to ensure that ‘home rule would mean freedom for women as well as men’.
27
Mary Hayden also entered the debate in 1914, and sought an amendment to the bill incorporating women’s suffrage on the basis of the local government register. Jenny Wyse Power, re-iterating the stance of nationalist women regarding suffrage during the home rule years, noted that:
Now the situation has quite changed, and those of us who are Irish nationalists can only hope that an appeal at this time of the extension of the suffrage to Irishwomen will not fall on unheeding ears [and] that they may be allowed to exercise their right to participate in the government of their own country.
28
A deputation of militant and non-militant suffragists travelled to London to petition for such an amendment, but neither Redmond nor Asquith would receive them.
From this point on, it was the growing separatist movement that most threatened the unity of the women’s movement in Ireland. While the
Irish Citizen
argued ‘there can be no free nation without free women’, the counter argument was made ‘neither can there be free women in an enslaved nation’.
29
This argument had been made over the past five years by the second group of ‘nationalist’ women – those who sought full independence over home rule. Amongst this group, criticism was directed not against the principle of women’s suffrage, but against the propriety of Irish women seeking the vote from an English government. Most advocated equality, but believed it would follow automatically on political independence. The ‘suffrage first before all else’ policy of the
Irish Citizen
led to much conflict with those with different priorities. Agnes O’Farrelly, a member of the Gaelic League and a suffragist, articulated this disagreement from the nationalist side:
Are we or are we not fighting for the vote before all other things? Some of us certainly are not. Keenly anxious as we are for the ordinary rights of citizenship for ourselves, we give woman suffrage second place to … some measure of freedom – for, at all events, the men of our own country.
30
Similarly, Rosamund Jacob, another suffragist member of the Gaelic League, and later of Cumann na mBan, wrote:
Political rights conferred on Irishwomen by a foreign government would be a miserable substitute for the same rights won, even three years later, from our own legislative assembly.
31
Prior to the
Irish Citizen
there had been an earlier Irish women’s paper,
Bean na hÉireann
,
published between 1909–11 by Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Erin), a nationalist women’s group with a strong feminist bias. Many issues covered by
Bean na hÉireann
were similar to those later covered by the
Irish Citizen
.
That there was concern about the status of women among some nationalist women had been clear from the pages of
Bean na hÉireann
.
Its editor, Helena Maloney, stated: ‘We wanted it to be “a woman’s paper”, advocating militancy, separatism and feminism.’ In its pages the views of nationalist women on the suffrage issue were made quite clear. An editorial in 1909 declared that:
We do not refuse to join the women’s franchise movement, but we decline to join with parliamentarians and unionists in trying to force a bill through Westminster. We prefer to try and organise a woman’s movement on Sinn Féin lines. Freedom for our nation and the complete removal of all disabilities to our sex will be our battlecry.
32
Correspondence to the journal voiced many similar arguments:
The women of Irish Ireland have the franchise, and it would be only humiliating themselves and their country to appeal or even demand the endorsement of a hostile parliament. They stand on equal footing with the men in the Gaelic League, in Sinn Féin, and the industrial movement. They are represented on the executives of all these, and under the present circumstances we should be content to regard these as representing Irish government.
33