Nine Irish Women
An appreciation...
Saoirse Ronan
Born - Apr 12, 1994 / New York, New York
Actress. Her parents, Paul and Monica Ronan are originally from Ireland and returned to live there during her childhood. Early Irish television work included the medical series The Clinic and Proof. Films include I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007), and Atonement (2007) for which she received an Oscar nomination. Starred in The Lovely Bones (2009), Hanna (2011), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Received a second Oscar nomination for Brooklyn (2015) and won the Golden Globe for Lady Bird (2017). Recent films are Mary, Queen of Scots (2018), Little Women (2019) and Ammonite (2020).
Mary Robinson Née Mary Therese Winifred Bourke
Born - May 21, 1944 / Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland
Senator (1969-1989). First woman President of Ireland (1990-1997). United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002). In 2002 formed Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative. Founded The Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice in 2010. Served as Chancellor of the University of Dublin (1998-2019), and is Chairman of the Institute for Human Rights and Business. In 2004 she received the Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International.
”I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.”
—Mary Robinson
Grace O'Malley In her Irish language Gráinne Ní Mháille, aka Gráinne O'Malley
Born - c. 1530 / Umhaill, Connacht, Ireland. Died - c. 1603 (73?) / Rockfleet Castle, Ireland
Daughter of Eoghan Dubhdara Ó Máille, upon his death the head of the Ó Máille dynasty in the west of Ireland, assuming the active leadership of the lordship. Refused to bow to Elizabeth I during a famous meeting at Greenwich Palace.
“A fearless leader by land and sea, a political pragmatist and politician, a ruthless plunderer, a mercenary, a rebel, a shrewd and able negotiator, the protective matriarch of her family and tribe, a genuine inheritor of the Mother Goddess and Warrior Queen attributes of her remote ancestors. Above all else, she emerges as a woman who broke the mould and thereby played a unique role in history.” --Anne Chambers
Maureen O'Hara Née Maureen FitzSimons Born - Aug 17, 1920 / Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland. Died - Oct 24, 2015 (95) Boise, Idaho
Actress, singer. Trained with the Rathmines Theatre Company beginning at age 10, joined the Abbey Theatre at 14. First film role, Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn (1939). That same year, she moved to Hollywood upon winning the role of Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), her second film with Charles Laughton. Film career included 50 motion pictures from 1939-1994 including How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), and Spencer’s Mountain (1963). Dubbed “The Queen of Technicolor.” Received an Honorary Oscar in 2014, only the second to receive such an honor without ever having been nominated in a competitive category.
Sinéad O'Connor
Born - Dec 8, 1966 / Glenageary, County Dublin, Ireland
Singer, songwriter. First album The Lion and the Cobra (1980). Worldwide hit with the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U”(1990) from the album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990). In a controversial appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she performed an a cappella version of the Bob Marley song “War,” which concluded with her ripping up a photograph of Pope John Paul II and the comment, “Fight the real enemy.” Ten albums, including Throw Down Your Arms (2005) and I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss (2014).
Iris Murdoch
Born - July 15, 1919 / Dublin, Ireland. Died - Feb 8, 1999 (79) / Oxford, England
Novelist and philosopher. Novels include Under the Net (1954), The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), Henry and Cato (1976), The Sea, the Sea (1978), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), and The Green Knight (1993). Philosophy work included major reinterpretations of Plato and Aristotle. Earned a scholarship to Vassar in 1946 but was denied a visa because she had joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1938. Won the Booker Prize for literature in 1978. For her services in literature she was made Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987.
Constance Markievicz Née Constance Gore-Booth
Born - Feb 4, 1868 / Buckingham Gate, London, England Died - July 15, 1927 (59) / Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
Politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, and first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament. She became the first female cabinet minister in Europe with her election as the Minister for Labour in the First Dáil, the unicameral parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. Sentenced to death for her part in the Easter Rising of 1916, her sentence was reduced on the basis of her sex. She went on to become the first woman elected to the UK House of Commons, although she could not take her seat as she was incarcerated in Holloway Prison.
“One thing she had in abundance--physical courage; with that she was clothed as with a garment.” --Sean O’Casey
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington
Born - May 24, 1877 / Kanturk, Country Cork, Ireland Died - Apr 20, 1946 (68) / Dublin, Ireland
Reformer, educator, suffragette and Irish nationalist. Her brother Richard was a good friend of James Joyce, who wrote about the Sheehy family in Ulysses. Hanna was a co-founder of the Irish Women’s Franchise League to further the cause of women’s voting rights in Ireland in 1908. She was thrown in jail in 1912 and 1913 as a voting rights activist. Founded “The Irish Citizen” with husband Francis Skeffington. Aligned herself with Sinn Féin in 1916. Founding member of the Irish Women Workers’ Union.
Anne Sullivan
Born - April 14, 1866 / Feeding Hills, Agawam, Massachusetts Died - Oct 20, 1936 (70) / Forest Hills, Queens, New York
Sullivan’s parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 1840s, during the Great Famine. Anne’s vision was damaged by trachoma at the age of 5. Following her 1886 graduation as valedictorian of her class at Perkins School for the blind, she became the teacher of deaf and blind Helen Keller, 7, of Tuscumbia, Alabama. She not only taught Helen how to communicate, she assisted her with the writing of the memoir The Story of My Life (1903). Their relationship lasted 49 years. Their early years together were dramatised by William Gibson in the award-winning play The Miracle Worker (1959). The title came from Mark Twain, who called Sullivan a “miracle worker.”
Special bonus: Dolores O’Riordan (1971-2018), Rest In Peace.