Meet the Warrior Women of Ireland

There's a reason why Ireland has one of the lowest participation of women in politics, enterprise and power. We are among the lowest countries in Europe for women's participation at the higher levels of business and when it comes to womens' influence on affairs of the state we lag behind many developing countries. And yet, for the most part, we don't like to talk about it let alone fix it. But that is not how we as a country began life. 

The very first sentence of the Proclamation enshrined equal rights to Irishmen and Irishwomen. An extraordinary declaration and the only one of it's era to put women and men side by side as equals. What hope there must have been at the dawn of our nation that we would be the trailblazers for equality. And up to that point Ireland was already bucking the trend. Female entrepreneurs were very much in evidence in Ireland until the Free State was born. Women ran business and were engaged in trade for centuries prior to the constitutional change that placed them firmly in the home and the Church firmly entrenched in the state in 1937. And although men and women fought for Independence and the right to be treated equally only half of Irish society reaped the rewards. But while charting the course of women over the past 100 years I unearthed some trailblazing heroes who succeeded against the odds. 

If you asked the younger Norah Casey what she wanted to be when she grew up it’s unlikely you would have seen much ambition for entrepreneurship or business. The idea would simply never have crossed my mind. It was either the nursing, the bank or sitting the exam for the civil service. Today most young women I come across believe they can be anything which is as it should be. It got me thinking about why I limited my aspirations to what I saw as ‘appropriate’. It didn’t come from my home. I had a father and mother who encouraged all of us to fulfil our potential. It was more external, a young woman’s perception of the world around them and the footsteps they might follow. There were simply no women in business to speak of – the world of commerce and enterprise was dominated by men. Of course there were women retailers, my mother and many of her peers earned money by knitting Aran jumpers for an enterprising women’s co-operative and women were very much in evidence in the world of fashion, beauty and interiors. But strong iconic women at the helm of big business just didn’t exist.

Over the past 100 years women’s worth and role was shaped more by political, religious and economic influences rather than their capabilities or indeed their contribution – which is often airbrushed out of Ireland’s history.

The reality is that being an Irish woman means we come from good stock, a gene pool that survived by entrepreneurial endeavour. Irish matriarchs were the backbone of Irish society during those war ravaged years and decades of social deprivation. It’s a notion I am not altogether comfortable acknowledging. I want women to be more than just the backdrop to men’s endeavours. But over time I have come to realise that those survival traits, honed over generations of suppression, helped make me who I am. That rich genealogy which came at such a high price to the women who have gone before us has created a rare breed of women. Bill Cullen would call them warriors, comedians get mileage out of the ‘Irish Mammy’ stereotype and most of us know to our cost that the single biggest group of women workers in Ireland up to the 1970s – the nuns – were a force to be reckoned with.

The right to succeed in business was hard won in Ireland, which for most of the 20th century was the most sexually supressed country in Europe, where women were treated like second class citizens long after other nations had taken strides for equality and where those in power and economic depression worked in tandem to keep women at home.

The irony is that prior to the establishment of the Irish Free State women probably did better in terms of their contribution to society. Women ran business and were engaged in trade for centuries prior to the constitutional change that placed them firmly in the home and the Church entrenched in the state in 1937. At least one in ten businesses in Irish towns and cities were run by women in the 19th century. Most were engaged in family or female focussed enterprise such as fashion, food and beauty products and a significant number were farmer’s wives and widows. But there were also independent midwives, book keepers and Madames in the more male-focussed and lucrative sectors of the economy. At the turn of the century women were engaged in social entrepreneurship and philanthropy. The charitable and voluntary sector is where women came into their own in the development of modern Ireland. As agents of social change this army of women laid the bedrock for fundamental changes in public life including and leading up to the fight for equality.

Imagine this. Way before New York or London a woman was admitted into the Irish Stock Exchange. The first woman member of a stock exchange in the world was Oonah Keogh who was only 22 years old when she applied for membership of the Dublin Stock Exchange in May 1925. The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) is now run by a woman, Deirdre Sommers, back then it was an all-male institution and Oonah’s application created quite a stir. For three weeks the matter was hotly debated and while the gentlemen were contemplating their options to ignore or reject her application the office of the Chief Justice sent a gentle reminder that they were not in fact legally entitled to refuse her on the grounds she was a woman. Extraordinary given that women were not allowed to own property, sit on juries, enter pubs, clubs and a whole variety of institutions – in fact it was only seven years previously they were given the right to vote. Oonah’s only credentials were wealth and self-belief. She came from good stock – her father Joseph Keogh was a long established member of the Dublin Stock Exchange and according to a book celebrating her life, published by the ISE in 2014, he believed that women had excellent judgement and a certain pragmatism when it came to business and investments and his own Head Clerk was a woman.

It took New York until 1967 to follow suit and the London Stock Exchange until 1973 – so at least in that respect Ireland was ahead of the times.

While I searched the annals for early entrepreneurs I came across Muriel Gahan born in 1897 in Donegal who was instrumental in the establishment of the Society of United Irishwomen (UI) in the 1920s which went on to become the Irish Countrywomen’s Association in 1935. Muriel established a not for profit company in 1930, The Country Workers shop at 23 St Stephen’s Green. Over the course of 38 years she created an army of self employed women – like my mother – who sold craftworks, Aran knitted jumpers, crochet, lace and a host of products produced by industrious women in their own home. She built a restaurant and tea rooms on the premises and her orders generated other businesses in chair-making, Irish pottery, homespun crafts and the early genesis of Avoca Woollen Mills. With other influential women lobbyists she was influential in the setting up of the National College of Art and Design and the Craft Council and Country Markets and supported the establishment of the Credit Union of Ireland led by Nora Herlihy, Sean Forde and Seamus MacEoin.

Back in 1927 it must have been quite something to be a woman at the helm of a team of painters and decorators but Ivy Hutton not only opened The Modern Decorator at 24 South Anne Street she made a policy of only employing women – an all-female enterprise in a male dominated world. An early apprentice of Ivy’s was none other than Muriel Gahan – these women were consummate networkers in a small pool of women entrepreneurs. Their stories are interwoven into one another’s lives – supporting, lobbying and transforming.

Another strong women of the day persuaded Charles Haughey to join her fundraising committee in the 1970s to secure the future of the Central Remedial Clinic which she had established in the early 50s to care for people who had Polio. Lady Valerie Goulding, Pittman-trained, Red Cross worker and physiotherapist had wide ranging influences on Irish society from the first ante natal classes (with Kathleen O’Rourke) to the first branch of the League of Health and Beauty in the 1940s. She served time as a Senator before her death in 2003 aged 84.

St Michael’s House owes its foundations to a powerful mother of three Patricia Farrell who in 1955 placed a newspaper ad for other parents of children with Down’s syndrome to meet at the Mansion house to push for education for her son Brian. I met and admired a great woman in Dublin, Alice Leahy, who runs Trust, a homeless charity founded by her mother Hannah another great networker, campaigner and social entrepreneur.

Women were also in evidence in the professions. Architect Eileen Gray born in Enniscorthy in 1878 went on to become one of the central pioneers of modernism along with Le Corbusier.

Fashion designer Sybil Connolly born in 1921 was the first Irish designer to successfully target the US market with her innovative use of traditional fabrics like tweed, crochet and Irish lace. Her vibrant colours caught the eye of Carmel Snow the editor of Harper’s Bazaar who brought press and buyers to Ireland in 1953 and established Sybil on the world stage. She stole the cover of Life Magazine with a headline “The Irish Invade Fashion World” and she dressed the likes of Julie Andrews and Elizabeth Taylor. Style icon Jackie Kennedy famously wore a Sybil Connolly pleated linen dress in her official White House portrait. Sybil paved the way for many internationally acclaimed Irish designers to follow suit.

Women have certainly battled against the odds in other professions – almost every senior position in law in Ireland is now occupied by a woman, we have a woman as Garda Commissioner, there are more female than male accountants in Ireland and that’s reflected in the success of senior women in finance positions in the corporate sector. In areas like technology women are breaking through to the upper tiers and in medicine women are now swelling the ranks. Change has been slow and continues to lag behind our European colleagues - we still have some way to go to achieve gender balance on the boards of our largest businesses (only one in 10 currently) and women are still woefully under-represented in senior management positions. Over the past century women have succeed in areas they could make a difference, most notably in social entrepreneurship. The story of women in business in Ireland is still in its infancy and really only began in the 1990s some 20 years after the EEC forced Ireland to take action on pay inequality, discrimination and support for women in the workplace.

Ignite your inner drive for success at the Women's Academy where you will be in the company of some of the most inspirational women leaders. The day includes networking, plenary seminars and an interactive afternoon workshop. Limited places available www.iristatleracademy.com @norahcasey @planetwoman_