Sheehy-Skeffington Legacy of Strong Women Lives On
By SHARON GREER
Last month marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, one of Ireland's most famous daughters. In 2005, the Duhallow Women's Forum unveiled a statue dedicated to this incredible Irish suffragette and republican.
 |
| HANNA SHEEHY-SKEFFINGTON |
The commemoration plaque, which proudly stands beside Hanna’s statue in Kanturk, County Cork, reads:
HANNA SHEEHY-SKEFFINGTON
1877 - 194
“Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was born in 1877 in Milhouse, Kanturk, County Cork into a highly political family.
“From a very early age in her life Hanna believed in women’s rights, even to the detriment of her relationship with her conservative father. She was an outspoken suffragette, whose father always worked against her efforts to obtain the vote for women. She was educated by the Dominicans and graduated with a degree from the Royal University.
“In 1900, Hanna met perhaps the only Irishman ever to call himself a feminist – the pacifist, Francis Skeffington. Impressively, he integrated Hanna’s surname with his own when they married in 1903.
“In 1908 Hanna and Francis, with their friends Gretta and James Cousins, founded the militant Irish Women’s Franchise league to fight for women’s right to vote and for women’s citizenship to be included in the Home Rule Bill.
“In 1916, Francis was brutally murdered by Captain Bowen Colthurst because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was shot not as a rebel, but because of his well-known anti-military views.
“He was actually involved in attempting to stop the looting which occurred during the carnage in those few short days of 1916, which have become known as the Easter Rising.
“Hanna was an energetic public speaker with remarkable integrity. She was an astute militant and radical intellectual who hoped for a “generation of new, strong Sheehy-Skeffington women.
“Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was one of the most remarkable of all the activists produced by revolutionary Ireland. A speaker of extraordinary acumen and discernment, she was well versed in international as well as Irish national affairs and was influential in literary, political, pacifist and feminist movements.
“In the end Hanna was simply worn out by her lifestyle. She died in April of 1946.”
Hanna’s hopes for a “generation of new, strong Sheehy-Skeffington women” has been fulfilled in the person of her grand-niece, Roisin Sheehy-Culhane, who resides in Lund, British Columbia.
|
