About the 'Our Irish Women' Exhibition

National Museum of Ireland, Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

By Averil Staunton

The Our Irish Women exhibition is the first network-wide project undertaken by members of the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) of which Historical Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo is a member.

The proposal was to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act (1918) which extended a limited form of suffrage to women in Ireland for the first time.

The Suffragist movement and the lobbying of women’s groups drove the extension of the Parliamentary and Local Government franchise in Ireland and in Britain. You can find out more in the books listed below.

Early in 2018, it was decided that each group would research a woman (or women) that had in some way contributed to their community, county or country. We would then exhibit these (mostly unknown) stories in the Courtyard Gallery at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life, as well as on the community archive websites and historicalballinrobe website.

The Our Irish Women exhibition can be viewed at the Museum from Oct 2nd through to November 25th, 2018 after which, the exhibition will travel to each community in the Network.

We will continue to gather women’s stories on Our Irish Heritage and on all the websites, so please feel free to contribute directly to historicalballinrobe.com or ballinrobehistorysite@gmail.com

Further reading:

Hayes, Alan and Meagher, Máire (eds.), A Century of Progress?  Irish Women Reflect  (Galway: Arlen House, 2017)

Ward, Margaret, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: Suffragette and Sinn Feiner (Dublin: UCD Press, 2017)

Watkins, Sarah-Beth, Ireland’s Suffragettes: The Women who Fought for the Vote (Dublin: The History Press, 2014)