Women of the Troubles

Richmond Barracks 1916: ‘We Were There’ — 77 Women of the Easter Rising

edited by Mary McAuliffe and Liz Gillis

(Dublin City Council Decade of Commemorations Series, Four Courts Press, €24.95)

Helen Litton

For many years, the Inchicore-Kilmainham Heritage Group fought to preserve Richmond Barracks, where over 3,000 rebels were held in the days following the Easter Rising in 1916. The barracks has now been renovated, and an exhibition tells the stories of the people who worked, lived or were imprisoned there over the last 200 years. 

The locally based Richmond Barracks Advisory Committee focused particularly on the history of women who took part in the Easter Rising, and this book, ably edited by two experts on Irishwomen’s history, Mary McAuliffe and Liz Gillis, has gathered the stories of the 77 women who were arrested immediately after the Rising and held at Richmond Barracks before being dispersed to other prisons.

Politically involved

These 77 were all more or less politically involved, at a time when most women led private domestic lives. Many of them were members of Cumann na mBan or the Irish Citizen Army, and most of them had been involved in other groups as well – feminist or cultural societies, or trade unions. 

They include some very well-known women of the period, such as Countess Markievicz, Kathleen Lynn and Helena Molony, but most of them have never been studied or even noticed before. This includes two of my grandfather’s sisters, Mary and Louisa O’Sullivan, who were active in the Four Courts garrison; their home in Arranmore Avenue, NCR, was an arms dump for the First Battalion, in which their brother was a captain.

Chapter One gives a very useful overview of women’s involvement in politics, from 1900 to 1916. The next two chapters detail the battles at City Hall, the Four Courts, the GPO and the other garrisons

Chapter Four covers the aftermath and what the women did afterwards, up to 1919; many of the Citizen Army women moved to Cumann na mBan. This is followed by detailed biographies of each woman, listed alphabetically within each garrison, apart from three women for whom no information could be found.

Patchwork

Each subject had her own (female) researcher, and ultimately a ‘patchwork’ of embroidered panels featuring all 77 women was crafted by the researchers and exhibited at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.

The concluding chapter examines why these women, no matter how prominent at the time, were ignored when the history began to be written, their part apparently seen as trivial. 

General Maxwell referred to them all as “silly little girls” and this attitude endured for a long time after independence. It is now, fortunately, being corrected, and the heroines of Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army who cared for the wounded, provided supplies and acted as couriers in extremely dangerous circumstances are being properly commemorated.

The book is well produced, with an interesting section of photographs and a striking cover. My one quibble (as a retired indexer) is that the index lists only the 77 women the book is about, although, of course, many other people are mentioned throughout the text.