Tag Archives: Women

by

Mary Anne Mamie Cadden

Mary Anne “Mamie” Cadden is one of the more polarizing figures in Irish history. She shines a light on the brutal realities faced by countless women when reproductive choice is not merely restricted but actively criminalized. Her tale also reveals the deep cost of working in the shadows for a society that outwardly condemns your services while quietly depending on them.


Mamie Cadden was born in America but her Irish parents moved their growing family back to County Mayo and raised them on a farm. Mamie loved the farm but did not want to spend her life there so when she got older she sold her portion of the land to get the schooling she needed to become a licensed midwife in 1926. She excelled in her craft but it was her extra curricular services that would both define her legacy and seal her fate. Mamie worked hard, providing full reproductive healthcare for women who had nowhere else to go. She offered maternity care, arranged adoptions and fostering services, but she also helped women with unwanted pregnancies by providing illegal abortions. Women traveled from across Ireland, seeking care that the official medical system could not and would not provide. Cadden built a thriving word of mouth practice that served multitudes of women and she prospered because of it. She dined at the city’s finest restaurants, went out socializing and dancing, drove a bright red car, and lived as though she had every right to this prosperity, because she believed she did. She rejected the shame and secrecy that Catholic Ireland demanded from someone like her, and this loud flamboyance cost her. She was arrested and jailed multiple times. These stints in jail resulted in Cadden losing her license but each time she was released, she carried on. Irish women from all walks of life continued to find their way to her door until 1956.

Everything changed when one of her patients, Helen O’Reilly, died. Multiple deaths had been connected to Cadden but police could never tie them directly to her until Helen passed. Helen’s death could not be swept under the rug (like the others allegedly were) and suddenly, the crucial care Cadden gave became her downfall.

The police made an example out of her and prosecuted her fully. She was the first and only person in Ireland to face capital punishment for a maternal death resulting from an abortion, despite the fact that such deaths occurred regularly before and after her time. The polite society that secretly needed her then publicly shunned her and the papers sensationalized the “backstreet abortionist” as a murderess. “Nurse Cadden” became shorthand for something sinister but that framing obscures what she actually was: a woman filling a void that church and state had created but refused to address.

Mamie Cadden’s death sentence was later commuted to life in prison but that life ended suddenly just a few short years later. She began serving her time in Mountjoy Prison, but was eventually moved to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Dublin where she died of a heart attack on this day in 1959.

Cadden’s story is not a cautionary tale about the dangers of abortion. It is evidence of what happens when legal, accessible reproductive healthcare is withheld from women. When we call her a “backstreet abortionist,” we are borrowing the vocabulary of the people who criminalized this care in the first place and it is used here as a historical reference only. In truth, Mamie was a convenient scapegoat for a system that preferred to punish people (mostly women) rather than examine its own structural failures. Women who were facing unwanted pregnancies or dangerous births had almost no legal options at that time (don’t get me started on the laundries) and the official medical system, constrained by law and Catholic doctrine, could not help them. Mamie Cadden could, and she did. In the end, she was neither a demon or an angel. She was a woman who recognized a need, had the skills to meet it, and operated in the gaps left by official medicine. Her story is not really about her own choices; it is about the systems that forbid choices, thereby forcing women into dangerous situations and then criminalizing the people who try to help them.

Contraception was outlawed in Ireland until 1979. Abortion was illegal until 2018 when voters repealed Ireland’s Eighth Amendment and changed reproductive healthcare on the island even more. The services that once made Cadden a criminal are now legal and accessible. That shift did not happen because Irish society woke up one morning with different values. It happened because Irish women had suffered for long enough and would no longer tolerate the silence, travel, and secrecy around this topic. It happened because enough people finally recognized that criminalizing reproductive healthcare creates more harm than it prevents.

Mamie Cadden understood this when she opened her practice 100 years ago and her story should serve as a vital reminder that nothing will ever eliminate the demand for abortion services. She reminds us that laws against abortion only push these services underground, often with tragic consequences. This is especially important to remember in this day and age when women all around the world are actually losing this crucial option. Women need safe abortion care and Mamie Cadden and Helen O’Reilly both remind us that only tragedy follows when that choice is taken away.

by

Sheelagh Murnaghan

On this day in 1993, the North of Ireland lost a formidable voice. Sheellagh Murnaghan was a tenacious woman who was dedicated to equality in a world that didn’t have much of it. She never let that stop her though and she championed that fight for decades, despite suffering defeats time and time again. Guess it was the hockey player in her that never let her back away from a good fight.

Sheelagh Murnaghan was born in Dublin, but she went to school in Omagh and then studied law at Queen’s University in Belfast. While studying to become a lawyer, she also found the time to join and captain the National Irish Women’s Hockey team. She gave up the sport when she became the region’s first female lawyer and was accepted to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1948. Murnaghan then went into politics. She was one of the first women in Stormont and was the only liberal voice in the chamber at that time. Sheelagh was considered eccentric – she liked cigars and often brought her dog to work. She was a woman, a Catholic, and a liberal in a misogynistic, Sectarian, and conservative climate and she was ferociously dedicated to human rights. Murnaghan introduced legislation to abolish the death penalty and attempted to pass a Northern Bill of Rights at least four times. She also stood for Traveller’s rights, criminalizing discrimination in the workplace, and equal compensation for all, regardless of sex, creed, or political belief. Sheelagh was met with opposition (and probable ridicule) every time she attempted to introduce anything but she did not let that stop her. I’m certain she would have continued her quest if she had been successful in winning another seat once the university’s were abolished in 1969. She stood for election twice more in two different areas, but she lost both times.

Murnaghan was no longer a member of parliament but she still championed equality every day. She sat on several committees, including the Industrial Relations Tribunal, the Belfast Settlement Committee, and the Equal Opportunities Commission. She chaired a tribunal that heard the region’s very first sexual harassment case and her law practice specialized in harassment cases and gender equality from that point on. Murnaghan was not born in the North of Ireland, but it is clear that she devoted her entire career to making it a fairer, more balanced place while others were actively trying to prevent these things. She was absolutely opposed to the violence that erupted in the region and was openly vocal about it, which led to potential peril when her house was bombed by Loyalist paramilitaries in 1970. Luckily, she was not injured or intimidated by this attack and she continued to fight for peace and justice for another twenty-three years.

Sheelagh Murnaghan died on this day in 1993. She did not live to see the North finally adopt many of her ideas, nor did she see the end of the more active conflict in the region, but today, many recognize her as one of the first torchbearers of change and equality in the area. It’s a fitting legacy for a woman who devoted her life to making the world a better place.

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

Maura Meehan and Dorothy Maguire

In the wee hours of the morning of October 23rd, 1971, the British Army rolled into the Falls area of Belfast with the intention of raiding houses and arresting anyone they suspected of criminal or “dissident” activities. It was a regular occurrence in the area and the residents had various ways of warning each other when the army was around. Runners would spread the word ahead of the vehicles and the Women’s Action Committee (WAC) would bang trash bin lids on the streets as an early alarm system. Sometimes people would blow whistles or sound horns from their cars as well which was exactly what two sisters, Maura Meehan and Dorothy Maguire, left a party to do on that early Autumn morning. When one of Meehan’s children asked where she was headed she told him that she’d be right back, as she grabbed a handheld horn and headed to a car outside. These words were the last she ever spoke to her family.

Continue reading →

by

The Wedding that tore Ireland apart

Charles Parnell and Katharine O’Shea had a love that was so strong it survived even when it destroyed both of their lives. It was able to withstand scandal, headlines, and pressure from the population, the politicians, and the church. Their affair was “the worst kept secret in London” and it torpedoed Ireland’s best chance for Home Rule. Nevertheless, they chose each other and were married on this day in 1891.

Continue reading →

by

Fantasy Island

Everyone has that place in their head. One place that they’ve fallen in love with whether or not they’ve ever been there. One place that serves as a goal or a dream and becomes a fantasy location where everything would suddenly be perfect. Many never reach that imagined place or if they do, they quickly find that the perceived nirvana in their head doesn’t match the reality in any way. We often romanticize or fantasize about other places because after all, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Continue reading →

by

The Choice

On May 25th, 2018, Ireland will have the chance to repeal the Eighth Amendment of its constitution in a referendum. This amendment was adopted in 1983 and it asserted that a fetus had the same rights as the woman who carried it. It’s no surprise that this law came into existance, since Ireland was still pretty synonymous with the Catholic faith when the Amendment was passed and while it allowed for pregnancy termination if the life of the mother was shown to be at risk, it made proving that exception more difficult. It also didn’t allow for the mental health of the mother – only the physical. The Eighth strengthened penalties for seeking an abortion both in Ireland and abroad and it ensured that community groups and organizations could not legally help women who wished to explore those options. It took decades of hard work to rectify the latter circumstances but abortion in Ireland was and is still illegal.

This is not to say that women (and girls) don’t get abortions. Recent statistics estimate that more than 150,000 Irish women have had abortions since the eighties. About a dozen have them every day – either by traveling to the U.K. where abortion is legal, by using the outlawed Plan B pill, or getting an illegal (and sometimes unsafe) abortion in Ireland itself.  These women risk a prison sentence of up to fourteen years if they are caught having an abortion on the island, but they do it anyway and that is really the only point that should matter in the upcoming referendum on whether the Eighth should be repealed or not.

Continue reading →

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

Nurse Margaret Keogh

On this day in 1916, Ireland’s Easter Rising began. All throughout Dublin men and women made their way to strategic outposts in the city with the hope that they could take them and last long enough for Ireland to be declared an independent nation. They were intent on overthrowing the English control of their homeland and went out with only that purpose in mind. Most other people had no idea of what was to come and they got up in the morning and headed to work as usual, unaware of how different their city was about to be.

Continue reading →

by

Remembering Mary O’Dwyer

Mary O’Dwyer (née Breen) was not a typical Irish Republican woman. She did not have the support of a politically powerful family, in fact they actively discouraged her from joining any political group. She defied them, her parish priest, and others when she began canvassing in County Tipperary for Sinn Fein at age sixteen. Two years later, Mary joined (and eventually commanded) her local branch of Cumann na mBan.

Continue reading →