Tag Archives: heroes

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The woman they couldn’t silence – remembering Veronica Guerin

Veronica Guerin was a reporter who refused to stay with a safe, sanitized story. She did not seek out danger but when it was present, she faced it with her notebook in hand. She was brave in the face of brutality and if she was warned to stay away from a story, she dug in even more. But on this day in 1996, that ever present danger caught her. She was 36 years old, a mother, and one of the most captivating investigative journalists in Ireland when a motorcycle pulled up alongside her car while she was stopped at a light. She probably didn’t even take notice of them until they smashed her window and fired several shots directly into her vehicle before they fled the scene. Veronica died before the ambulance arrived. It took less than a minute to kill her body but decades later, her spirit lives on. 

In the early 1990s, Dublin was in the grip of a heroin epidemic that was quietly destroying working-class communities while the powerful looked the other way. Guerin, a reporter for the Sunday Independent, decided that looking away was not an option. She reported on the criminal gangs controlling Ireland’s drug trade at a time when most journalists treated those stories as too dangerous, too murky, or simply too unglamorous to pursue. She knocked on the doors of drug lords. She sat across from men who had ordered destruction and murder and asked them, politely and precisely, to explain themselves. This was not recklessness. It was a considered, principled commitment to the idea that journalism exists to serve the people. She was also, by all accounts, genuinely charming in a way that seemed to disarm people who had every reason to be guarded and hostile toward her and her work. She made this gift work for her most of the time, but ultimately it failed to protect her in the end.

What makes Guerin’s murder even worse is how predictable and preventable it was. She had been warned. She had even been wounded before, when a gunman showed up at her house after she began investigating organized crime and drug dealing in south Dublin. Her home and family were often threatened. She reported all of it and named names to her editors, the Gardaí, her readers, and anyone else who would listen. To their credit, the paper installed a security system and the Gardaí assigned officers to her after she was shot the first time, but she did not agree to these efforts because they hampered her ability to pursue leads and report the stories she was compelled to share. Eventually, the surveillance diminished and everyone began ignoring these threats or even worse, they told her to back off and shut her mouth, repeatedly. This was not something she was willing to do. Veronica was not naive about the risks but she believed her stories were worth it. In interviews just before her death, she acknowledged the threats with a matter-of-factness that reads now as both brave and tragic. She believed the people of Dublin’s devastated communities deserved someone who would speak for them and when no one else would, she raised her own voice.

Veronica Guerin’s assassination sent a shock through Ireland and had lasting consequences that are difficult to overstate. The country had seen plenty of violence but this was different. This was a journalist, a woman, and a mother, who was shot dead in broad daylight on a busy road simply because she had done her job too well. The public response was immediate and furious. Within weeks, the Irish government passed some of the most significant criminal justice legislation in the country’s history, including two acts which gave authorities new powers to seize the assets of criminal organizations. The Criminal Assets Bureau went on to dismantle a lot of the drug empire that ultimately killed Guerin when she refused to stay quiet about it. Ireland did not become a perfect, drug and criminal free country after her death, but it did become a different one, thanks in no small part to Veronica Guerin. 

Guerin’s name is now attached to journalism awards, university programs, and both feature and documentary films. That is right and fitting but legacy has a way of softening the sharp edges of a life, and it would be a disservice to her to let that happen here. The structural conditions that made her vulnerable have not disappeared in the decades since her assassination. Women journalists around the world continue to face targeted harassment, threats, and violence at rates that far exceed their male counterparts, according to UNESCO research published in recent years. Online abuse, coordinated intimidation campaigns, gender-based insults, chauvinistic dismissals, and the slow erosion of institutional support for investigative reporting are on the rise. Journalists face daily threats of harm, similar to the threats that Guerin faced years ago. What she bravely showed us was that we can refuse to accept that the powerful get to define the terms of their own accountability. She reported on people who believed they were untouchable and she made them vulnerable in print with evidence, publicly. That act, repeated by journalists around the world every day, is one of the few genuine checks we have left on the powerful, and those who undertake this mission need to be protected as the rare jewels they are. 

Today marks another anniversary of her death. In Dublin, people who remember her death may pause for a few thoughts or words about her. People who are too young to remember may encounter her name here and there throughout the day and if they are curious, they may find one of her powerful stories or some information about why she’s still relevant and important. She possessed a focus and determination that her colleagues still struggle to describe without a catch in their voices and a tear in their eyes. Veronica Guerin was a hero and a woman who decided that the truth mattered more than her comfort and safety. She paid the highest possible price for that decision but she was not wrong when she made it. The truth is important and independent media and investigative reporting continue to provide it on every continent, every single day. It may get overshadowed by hateful pundits and manufactured outrage but it still exists. Expect more from your news sources and seek out this type of reporting to drown out the noise of partisan headlines. When you support journalists and investigative reporting,  you honor Veronica Guerin and those like her. That’s critically important in this day and age, especially today.

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The Mighty Margaret Skinnider

When you listen to or read accounts (including my own) of Margaret Skinnider’s life it’s immediately clear that she was a fighter and a warrior. She was brave and devoted to Irish freedom. She was gravely wounded in the Easter Rising but somehow survived her injuries to continue fighting for Ireland, for recognition and pensions for women, and for Irish workers for the next five decades or so. Her fierceness has inspired many and we’ve all rushed to applaud Skinnider’s fighting spirit, using it to highlight and recognize the important (and often atypical) roles that Irish women played throughout history.

It’s pretty common knowledge that Margaret Skinnider was a teacher, a revolutionary, a union boss, a devoted suffragist, a deadly sniper, a commanding officer, an explosives expert, a smuggler and so much more. We’re used to seeing her as a dedicated, cross-dressing, sharp shooting freedom fighter so it might be a little jarring to hear one of her best friends say that Skinnider was love and kindness incarnate and that she was gentle. Sure she was a soldier who spent most of her life fighting for one cause or another but she was also full of empathy and love, kindness and compassion – and many of the historical narratives (including my own) overlook those aspects of Skinnider’s life.

This is part of a bigger problem. In our rush to make sure that women are counted among the heroes of history, we often highlight only the fiercest and more traditionally “male” aspects of them. We tell tales of how they outsmarted others and how they aggressively fought for something and proved themselves worthy of remembrance and praise. We often ignore their traditionally “feminine” sides in favor of a glorious and heroic tale. The famous photo of Margaret dressed as a boy with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth is a perfect example of that. We remind people that that she was a female sniper and one of only two women who wore a soldier’s uniform during the Easter Rising, and we set her apart from the hundreds of other women who were there in their Easter skirts and dresses. There were many other brave women on active duty and they each brought their own fighting spirit and individual set of skills…some of them even saved Skinnider’s life after she’d been shot multiple times. These women are just as worthy of remembrance whether we know their names and stories yet or not, even if they had more traditional roles. Margaret’s exciting and unusual tale has become more popular in recent years but in telling it we’ve done her a disservice. We’ve all celebrated her deeds but most of us ignored the other aspects of her life. It’s less common knowledge that Skinnider was as gentle, loyal and loving as she was aggressive. She lived a long life full of love, music and long lasting friendships. Her favorite song about Ireland was a somewhat sappy love song called The Jackets Green. She was a lesbian in a committed and life long relationship in an era when that was not only frowned upon, but illegal. Mary McAuliffe’s newish book about Margaret Skinnider uncovers that love story and much more. It is an overdue biography that focuses on Skinnider’s life as a whole, rather than highlighting one or two of her legendary acts. It gives our inspiring hero her entire life back, long after she passed away.

Which brings us to the point, dear readers. On this day in 1971, the mighty Margaret Skinnider threw off this mortal coil. She is buried in the Republican 1916 plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, where she rests next to many of her dearest friends and comrades. To remember her today, why not listen to this interview with Mary McAuliffe where she talks about some of the lesser known aspects of Skinnider’s life or you can listen to Margaret tell her own story of Easter week right here. If you’re like me and you still haven’t been able to break up with the written word, you can find Skinnider’s own 1917 propaganda masterpiece, Doing My Bit For Ireland in various places on the web and in bookstores throughout Ireland. While you’re at it keep an eye out for Margaret Skinnider by Mary McAuliffe as well.

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The Mighty Anne Devlin

There are so many important women in Irish history that I could work the rest of my life (which I probably will) and not get to them all. That said, Anne Devlin is the one who started it all. Without Anne I may never have had the jump start I needed to begin writing again. I may never have started a blog and certainly would not have written a book. But it’s not all about me – without Anne Devlin, numerous rebellions in Ireland could have been compromised. Important uprisings would not have happened. Patriots would most certainly have been jailed or killed. Her fortitude and silence against all odds and various forms of torture probably saved thousands of lives, though it cost her dearly.

On this day in herstory, Anne Devlin Campbell passed away – long after her incarceration in one of the most notorious dungeons and prisons in Ireland. It’s amazing that she lived so long given her brutal treatment there. She was an elderly, broke washerwoman living in relative obscurity when she died, but she was never broken. This is some of her tale that I wrote and continue to repost every year in remembrance of this powerful woman.

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Anne Devlin

There are many, many women in Irish history who never get the recognition they deserve for their contributions to it. Anne Devlin may be the most egregious example of that. Her strength and dedication to the Irish cause was truly like no other.

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The mighty Margaret Skinnider

On the third day of Ireland’s Easter Rising, a woman got off her bicycle at St. Stephen’s Green and delivered the message she’d been hiding to the rebel leaders inside. Then she took off her skirts, put on a homemade uniform, picked up a rifle and headed to the roof of the building to take her turn as a deadly sniper. In between shots, Margaret Skinnider formed a plan for a bombing mission that would make the area safer for her comrades and fellow rebels.

Attempting to execute that plan nearly killed her when Ms. Skinnider was shot three times on this day in 1916. Her grave wounds earned her the distinction of being the only woman who was so seriously wounded in the rebellion and it cemented her place in Irish history. You cannot have a project that involves women in the Easter Rising without including Margaret’s near death experience so today belongs to her.

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And we’ll all go together

The last few years have not been kind to many of my musical idols. To be fair, many were older already and had lived full and wild lives so their passing was not necessarily a surprise but when you lose childhood heroes like David Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen it still hurts. This week Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries has joined them, which was shocking. O’Riordan was young and she had three children. She was just starting to record again and get back on her feet. I was looking forward to hearing what she was going to do next, as were many others and this terrible news means that we’ll never know.

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PapalGate

It was the tear heard around the world. In one split (ahem) second Sinead O’Connor defiantly threw her figurative middle fingers in the air, lost a record amount of fans, and got banned from Saturday Night Live with her protest of the Catholic church. Many of the flock still haven’t forgiven her even now, twenty-five years later.

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Gerry Conlon R.I.P.

Gerry Conlon may be the single most influential person when it comes to who got me into studying Irish politics. The Guildford Four case was riveting for me and it showed just how cruel and scared absolutely everyone was in the heart of the conflict known colloquially as the Troubles. His case was a close second to the Easter Rising of 1916 in my favorite stories of tragic Irish triumph.

On June 21st, 2014 at 4AM California time, I found out that Gerry Conlon had passed away and I actually shed a tear. This marked the first time I  cried over a celebrity passing away since Johnny Cash, and I am pretty sure that it only happened those two times. I was heartbroken and I almost got up then to write about it but I wasn’t awake enough  to articulate the utter sadness of this news.

For those that may not know his story, early in 1975, Gerry Conlon and three other young adults were arrested in connection to the IRA bombing of the Guildford Pub. Despite having nothing to do with the IRA or the bombings, they were convicted and sentenced to life in prison…thankfully, since if they’d been sentenced to death, they all would have been dead before their convictions were quashed. Before they were eventually released, another seven innocent people were convicted of aiding them in this incident – including many of Conlon’s family members and his father, Giuseppe Conlon. Guiseppe never strayed from proclaiming his innocence and he remained hopeful that the miscarriage of justice would be overturned, but Gerry did not. Gerry did not have the fortitude of belief of his father.

Guiseppe Conlon died in prison an innocent man. Years and years later, his son – who found the fighter in himself shortly after the tragic death of his dad, eventually walked out of the courthouse through the front door over fifteen years later when his conviction was quashed, proving to the world that the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven had been wrongly convicted. The blockbuster movie “In the Name of the Father” was based on these real life events and is an amazing film. If you haven’t seen it, go find it now. Seriously. It took over fifteen years for the police to admit they had made mistakes and purposefully suppressed evidence in order to convict these men and women…none of whom fit any profile or had any paramilitary or political ties.

I was sixteen when they released Gerry and I remember seeing the footage of him leaving the courthouse. It was one of my first forays into Irish politics – and it was a story that led to another, to another, and to another. More than twenty-five years later, I can point to Gerry Conlon as one of the reasons that I fell in love with Irish history. His story had a profound effect on my psyche. Unfortunately his story does not have the Hollywood ending that he so deserved. He struggled with depression, suicide, and addiction since the day he was finally released – and really, who wouldn’t? I cannot find fault in the need to try to erase what has happened to you and your family in whatever way you can. Still, Conlon made it to sixty years of age and was a published author and an activist in other cases that he felt were rigged or unfair. He died on this day in 2014 in Belfast and even now I am still a little teary as I write those words. I wish I had met him – it actually was a thing I had hoped to do someday – just to tell him what a profound impact his story had on shaping who I am and what my interests are. Sixty is too young for many but for Gerry Conlon it was a pretty amazing feat, given that he spent over 15 of them wrongly convicted in the harshest prisons.

His family says it better than anyone else could. In a statement issued through his lawyer Gareth Peirce, they said: “He brought life, love, intelligence, wit and strength to our family through its darkest hours. He helped us to survive what we were not meant to survive. We thank him for his life and we thank all his many friends for their love.”

Rest in Peace Mr. Conlon. Your story and your fight will forever be inspiring and triumphant. I am sorry you lived it and I am thankful for the impact it had on me.  I hope you see your father again.