OPINION: Forgotten women of the revolution

As the Decade of Centenaries draws to a close, there will no doubt be a period of public reflection on the value and achievements of the government’s most ambitious commemorative programme. Spanning the years from the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912 to the formation of an independent Irish State in 1921, the programme has shone a light on the experiences of the Irish people during the tumultuous periods in our history, including the struggle for Independence, the Civil War, the foundation of the State and the partition of Northern Ireland.
A century may feel like a long time ago, but just as catastrophes like the so-called Great Famine are etched on our DNA, so too are the events of this time that many of our grandparents could still recall in vivid detail. The programme aimed to offer a deeper understanding of these events, and to acknowledge that the experiences and recollections of people within communities, and sometimes even within homes, were very different.
It was also designed to respectfully recall the everyday experiences of ordinary people during those times as well as those of the historical leaders of the time. The programme has, for the most part – proposed RIC commemorations aside – been less controversial than might have been anticipated and has avoided glorifying the violence of Ireland’s past, while still acknowledging it. To an extent.
Outside of its formal remit, the programme has sparked other discussions, and recently, we have belatedly seen an increased focus on the experiences of women during the periods of the War of Independence and the Civil War. That it has taken this long to recognise both the significant political impact women made in their own right through membership of paramilitary organisations like Cumann na mBan, but also the upsetting accounts of how women were so deeply affected by violence, often sexual violence, during this time is disappointing, but unsurprising.
The experiences of women during the most formative period of our State’s history have been brushed over and largely forgotten, and in cases where huge harm was caused, a culture of impunity at the time protected male perpetrators of violence from prosecution for what were essentially war crimes.
Professor Linda Connolly is the author of ‘Sexual Violence in the Irish Civil War: A Forgotten War Crime?’, a piece of research that documents and analyses a series of conflict-related rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated in the period of the Irish Civil War. In it, we hear the stories of Flossie and Jessie McCarthy, the daughters of the local doctor in Kenmare. The Doctor was pro-Treaty, and his daughters, aged 21 and 19, were sexually policed, punished and brutally attacked by senior Irish Army officers in their own home on Saturday, June 2, 1923.
Another incident closer to home was also highlighted in this research, and most recently in a powerful documentary on RTÉ Radio 1, ‘A Dark Night in Foxford’. At the age of 27, Maggie Doherty, an intelligence officer with Cumann na mBan and a carer for her mother, was forcibly dragged from her home and her bed, stripped and raped by three men just metres from her house. The documentary, painstakingly researched by historian Frank Fagan and Maggie’s own grand-niece Edel, airs her own harrowing witness testimony. The fact that she died at just 32 years of age in Castlebar Mental Hospital only hints at the trauma Maggie experienced on that fateful night, and again during the court martial, which delivered no justice.
During this year’s Ballina Salmon Festival, for National Heritage Day and as part of the Ballina 2023 programme of events, local historian Sinéad Mitchell-Brennan was one of four speakers at a seminar titled ‘The Changing Face of Ballina before and after the Civil War’. In her powerful presentation, Sinéad told the poignant story of Ms Connie Tynan, visiting from Tullamore, who was a civilian causality of the Civil War in Ballina. Mortally wounded while crossing the bridge over the Moy after Mass by a stray bullet from a confrontation between members of the North Mayo Brigade and Free State soldiers, she was just 21.
Ms Mitchell-Brennan also shared the stories of the brave formidable Ida O’Hora, a highly regarded Cumann na mBan soldier, and her comrade, Margaret Sweeney. Stories that have rarely been heard.
The Decade of Centenaries demonstrated that in order to move forward, we first need to sit with our past, acknowledge it and learn from it. But how can we do so when the stories of half the population at the time were rendered practically invisible, and the atrocities committed against them were barely admitted, let alone punished? Why should these women’s experiences be disregarded and diminished, their enormous contributions ignored?
Sinéad Mitchell-Brennan put it best. “So many women, so many stories untold, and so many unsung heroes. There are no plaques for the women of Cumann na mBan in Ballina. There are no streets which bear their names. There are no memorials to mark the spot where poor Constance Tynan gave her young life, for a conflict in which she had no part. I hope that someday, this will change.”