Fictionalising History - Guest Blog by author Marina Neary
In 1903, at the age of 20, Dubliner Helena Molony (1883-1967) was inspired to join Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) by a speech given by Maud Gonne. Somewhat of a renaissance woman, she engaged in a campaign to compel Dublin City Council to provide meals to the starving children of Dublin, she founded and edited Bean na hÉireann (a monthly ‘woman’s paper advocating militancy, separatism and feminism’ that could count Eva Gore-Booth, Countess Markeviecz, Roger Casement and Patrick Pearse amongst its contributors) and acted on the Abbey stage.
She was a member of Cumann na mBan and, ‘always on the side of the underdog’, she became active in the Labour Movement. During the 1916 Rising, she was one of the Irish Citizen Army that attacked Dublin Castle. She was imprisoned until December 1916 after which she continued her activities in left-wing, nationalist and feminist activism. Post-Independence, Helena began to despair of the manner in which the Free State treated women - ‘their inferior status, their lower pay for equal work, their exclusion from juries and certain branches of the civil service, their slum dwellings and crowded, cold and unsanitary schools for their children’. She became President of the Irish Trade Union Congress in 1937 but was forced into retirement in 1941 and lived in poverty until her death in 1967. A complex and dynamic woman, it could be argued Helena was too revolutionary and idealistic to be contained even by the turbulent era in which she played such an integral part.
In her novel, Never Be At Peace, Marina Neary fictionalises Helena’s life and here she describes the challenges of taking on the voice of an historical character.
The legacy of Helena Molony has been, unfortunately, downplayed and neglected by historians. I hope with the 100th anniversary of 1916 just around the corner, the obscured figures will be resurrected and illuminated.
I started writing Never Be at Peace in 2011 shortly after completing Martyrs and Traitors: a Tale of 1916 which featured the political and intimate misfortunes of Bulmer Hobson, another figure whose contributions to the Irish nationalistic movement had been downplayed on the account of his opposition to the Easter Rising. According to some sources, Hobson and Molony had been more than former comrades torn apart by an ideological rift – they had been lovers. They came from two different worlds. He was an upper middle-class Protestant from a stable family in Belfast. She was a quintessential lower middle-class Catholic girl from Dublin, an orphan to boot. After finishing Martyrs and Traitors, I realised that I was not finished telling the story of Hobson’s first love. A separate novel had to be written.
Historical literature abounds with tales of troubled revolutionary actresses who defied the convention. Who can resist a pugnacious girl who was arrested for throwing rocks at the portrait of King George, took part in an armed rising and who tried to dig her way out of prison with a metal spoon? Sometimes I half-jokingly say that Helena Molony is Ireland’s Cinderella. Indeed, there are some undeniable parallels. Helena had a wicked stepmother and a fairy godmother figure – the indomitable Maud Gonne who helped launch her theatrical career and propelled her to the new level of prominence in nationalistic circles. Helena even had a potential Prince Charming in the face of Bulmer Hobson, though that relationship was not meant to have a happy ending. Helena’s golden carriage turned back into a rotting pumpkin a little too soon. Personal disappointments and losses aside, her dreams for a free Ireland did not transpired as she had hoped.
One of the reasons why I didn’t write a straightforward biography on Helena Molony is because there isn’t enough material to work with. Nell Regan was fortunate enough to interview some of the people who knew Helena personally but alas, so much documentation has been lost. Most of Helena’s photos from her days on stage perished in the fire at the Abbey Theatre. Her image had to be reconstructed from the episodic accounts and references of her surviving contemporaries.
When writing historical fiction with limited amount of primary sources on hand, it’s not just about filling the gaps with whatever comes to mind. It’s about making educated guesses and choices that will honour the integrity of the era. While the revolutionary women of that era acted somewhat outside social norms, there is a limit to how much freedom a novelist can take. Historical fiction is like a minefield. You have to be wary of anachronisms. Believe me, I’ve read many manuscripts featuring ‘forward-thinking’ heroines who act not like they are 10 years ahead of their time but a few solid centuries. I’m referring to scenes where a medieval maiden tosses her hair, rolls her eyes and declares that ‘she has a mind too, and will not be treated like a piece of meat.’ In short, shop girls from Edwardian Rathgar do not behave like reality TV stars. How would an unmarried woman of the late Victorian era deal with an unplanned pregnancy? Even Maud Gonne, with her penchant for defying conventions, raised her illegitimate daughter Iseult in a convent and then presented her to the polite society as her niece.
One of the most surprising conclusions of my research was that women in 1908 appeared to have more freedom and moral latitude than in 1938 after De Valera’s constitution that hurled Ireland into a sort of theocratic patriarchy. In light of the new cultural shift, Helena suddenly fell out of favour. Prone to alcoholism and angry outbursts she became a persona non grata. Her penchant for violent melodrama that made her such a compelling revolutionary figure suddenly made her less than desirable in the context of new culture that encouraged obedience and domesticity in women. The nature of her relationship with Dr. Evelyn O’Brien, a psychiatrist seventeen years her junior was subject to speculation. Some historians insist that Helena was bisexual, and Dr. O’Brien was her romantic partner. So when she started falling out of public life, nobody protested.
The novel features an ensemble of other prominent women of the nationalistic movement such as Countess de Markiewicz, Dr Kathleen Lynn and Lily Connolly. In the words of Pearse, ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’, but it seems that the war continues even after the last shot had been fired.
Marina’s novel Never Be At Peace is available from www.amazon.com
Oiche Nollaig na mBan
Oiche Nollaig na mBan (‘The Night Of Women’s Christmas’), Sean O'Riordain (1916-77)
There was fury in the storm that came last night last night,
The night of the Christmas of Women;
It came as if released from a distant bedlam
A lunatic shriek howling through the sky;
Rattling against the gate like the gaggling of geese
Roaring up the river like a bellowing bull
Dousing my candle like a blow upon my mouth :-
An unexpected spark for anger
I hope such a storm will come to me
The night I begin to die
As I return home from the dance of life
With the light of this life sputtering out,
So every moment might be filled with cries from the sky,
Transforming the world into a chorus of screams,
So I would not hear the silence moving toward me
Or feel the engine that moves me stop
(Translated from the original Irish by Sarah Lundberg and Oran Ryan)
Centenary memorial for Alicia Brady, Jacob's factory striker - January 4th, Glasnevin Cemetery
Irish Women Worker's Network, 2013
A centenary memorial is being held at Glasnevin Cemetery on Saturday, January 4th at 2pm to commemorate 16 year old Jacob’s worker, Alicia Brady, who was fatally injured by the ricochet from a revolver fired by a strike breaker, or scab, called Patrick Traynor on December 18th 1913.
No photograph of Alicia Brady exists, instead this reproduction of the incident features in the Lockout Tapestry.
Leonora Carrington: The Celtic Surrealist exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art
Portrait of Leonora, c/o the Carrington Estate, via IMMA
There are a series of major retrospective exhibitions coming to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) this Autumn. Irish artist Leonora Carrington (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) is the subject of IMMA’s retrospective in their newly refurbished galleries at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham site. As expected, IMMA have delivered, with a series of talks and seminars surrounding the exhibition, which opens to the public from the 18th of September, running until the 26th of January 2014.
Talks and Lectures Prelude Talk | Teresa Arcq Surrealist Women Artists in Exile Sunday 15 September, 2.00pm – 3.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA As a prelude to the Leonora Carrington retrospective, Teresa Arcq (Adjunct Curator, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City) introduces Leonora Carrington’s magical world of paintings and stories, and situates this in the broader cultural context surrounding the exile of other Surrealist women artists to Mexico and the USA.
Preview Seminar | Rediscovering Leonora Carrington Tuesday 17 September, 1.00pm - 6.00pm, the Chapel, IMMA
Garden Galleries Open from 10.00am – 8.00pm
The enigmatic work of Leonora Carrington is informed by her rich interest in Celtic mythology, children’s literature, feminism, and the ethnographic study of religion, myth, and magic. Yet, until recent times, little is known of this last Surrealist artist and her significant contribution to the Surrealist cultural movement. This seminar features presentations by leading scholars on Carrington’s work, who will discuss the artist’s personal and creative connections to prominent Surrealist circles in Europe and Mexico, explored through a range of critical contexts that are informing international reappraisal of Carrington’s work.
Invited speakers include Seán Kissane (Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA), Giulia Ingarao (Art Curator and Historian, Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo) Teresa Arcq (Adjunct Curator, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City), Dawn Ades (Professor of Art History and Theory, University of Essex, UK), Alyce Mahon (Senior Lecturer in History 20th Century Art, University of Cambridge), Susan Aberth (Associate Professor of Art History, Bard College, NY) and Chairperson Roisin Kennedy (Lecturer, School of Art History & Cultural Policy, UCD). The official exhibition launch and wine reception follow this event.
Culture Night Talk | Seán Kissane Friday 20 September, 7.00pm, Garden Galleries, IMMA Curator of the exhibition Seán Kissane (Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA) presents a gallery talk on some of his most fond works selected for this exhibition.
In Discussion | Women, Art and Society Thursday 17 October, 5.30pm - 7.00pm, Lecture Room, IMMA In conjunction with Leonora Carrington The Celtic Surrealist and Eileen Gray Architect Designer Painterthis discussion invites artists, curators and academics to re-examine feminist art history in addressing closely related issues of ethnicity, class, labour, and sexuality in recent developments of contemporary art practice. Speakers explore the turn towards autobiography in women’s art and consider issues of the personal versus the political in reviewing similarities and differences for women artists working today and the seminal work of feminist artists of the past.
Gallery Talk | Artist Responses Wednesday 13 November, 1.00pm - 2.00pm, Garden Galleries, IMMA Contemporary artists discuss Surrealist ideas and their eclectic interests in metamorphosis, humour, gastronomy, animal imagary and fairytale as a means to re-evaluate Carrington’s unorthodox relationship to traditional aesthetics.
Lecture | Luke Gibbons Magical (Sur)realism: Ireland, Mexico Wednesday 20 November, 5.30pm - 6.30pm, Lecture Room, IMMA Luke Gibbons (Professor of Irish Literary and Cultural Studies, National University of Ireland, Maynooth) will discuss the affinities between vernacular modernism and folklore in Surrealism. Gibbons examines the links between Carrington’s Irish interests with the distinctive Mexican cast of her visual modernism, in relation to film and the ‘spectral’ in contemporary Irish culture.
Admission to this exhibition is free.
WMI and The Arthur Guinness Project Funds
The WMI is now part of the Arthur Guinness Projects Fund race, having applied for a grant to find the museum a home.
The Arthur Guinness Fund is awarding up to €50,000 to innovative and inspiring ideas in the areas of arts, food, sport and travel. The WMI have applied in the hopes of bringing the project to the next chapter and finding a permanent space in Ireland.
Only projects in the top 10% of votes are put forward to the judging panel for consideration. Voting for the project can be done here and votes can be cast once a day until August 23rd.
Make sure to vote for and share the campaign to give us the best chance of success
The Things My Mothers Taught Me
Clíodhna Meldon
Clíodhna Meldon took some beautiful photographs of our launch back in March.
It’s wonderful to see that the inspiration flows both ways, as for her final year project she put together this wonderful publication entitled ‘Things My Mothers Taught Me’, partially inspired by our venture, and mostly paying tribute to the strong, influential women in her life.
You can view it below:
https://issuu.com/clio.meldon/docs/thethingsmymotherstaughtme
Thank you for sharing Clíodhna!
WMI at the Countess Markievicz School
We’ll be attending the 2013 Countess Markievicz School in Liberty Hall tomorrow and live-tweeting from the event.
The Countess Markievicz School is a discussion forum on women in Ireland in honour of Ireland’s first female MP and Cabinet Minister. This year the school will address “Women and Poverty: Then and Now”.
More information on the Countess Markievicz School can be found at http://www.countessmarkieviczschool.ie/
WMI Talks History
Founders Kate Cunningham and Jean Sutton will be joining historian Patrick Geoghegan on Newstalk’s Talking History Show this evening at 8.30pm
We’ll be discussing why Ireland needs a Women’s Museum and what our plans are for the future.
Tune in on 106-108fm or online http://www.newstalk.ie/talkinghistory
Join the WMI team!
As the Women’s Museum of Ireland expands we are looking for a candidate (male or female) to fill the position of Content Editor. We are a group of young women working voluntarily on this project, and are looking for new people to join our team!
As Content Editor your primary responsibilities will be:
-Sourcing content: submissions on Irish women’s history for the website on an ongoing basis -Sourcing (and ensuring we have copyright to reproduce) images to accompany website entries -You will be liasing mainly with the Outreach Officer and Digital Communications & Online Manager
You will gain experience in: copyright permissions, content editing, autonomous research, and outreach.
The right candidate will be highly motivated and have a genuine interest in social history and digital humanities.
This role is voluntary, but is a worthwhile endeavour, and will be a great addition to your CV. This role can be carried out remotely, from anywhere in Ireland, though you may be required to travel to Dublin for strategy meetings every couple of months.
If you are interested please get in touch with us via info@womensmuseumofireland.ie, with a short paragragh highlighting your interest in this project, and any relevant experience you may have.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Women's Museum of Ireland on Moncrieff today
WMI Founder Kate Cunningham will be talking to Sean Moncrieff about founding the museum and plans for the future on Newstalk 106 - 108fm today.
Tune in at 2.15pm or contribute some ideas for the museum.
http://www.newstalk.ie/What-would-you-put-in-the-Womens-Museum-of-Ireland
'Monsters of Creation': Snapshots of Women in Higher Education
“A learned girl is one of the most intolerable monsters of creation” - Saturday Review, 1869
Join us on March 4th as we kick off International Women’s Week and celebrate the launch of the Women’s Museum of Ireland.
7pm: Panel Discussion with Professor Susan Parkes, Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness, Judge and Activist and Jean Sutton, founding member of the Women’s Museum of Ireland. Chaired by Hannah McCarthy, Auditor College Historical Society
8pm: Launch of the Women’s Museum of Ireland and “Monsters of Creation”: Snapshots of Women in Higher Education with Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness.
Venue:
Ui Chadhain Theatre, Trinity College (panel discussion) and Long Room Hub , Trinity College (launch).
Ladies Who Launch
The Women’s Museum of Ireland is delighted to announce the launch of their campaign for Ireland’s first Museum of Women’s History this Monday 4th March in Trinity College’s Long Room Hub.
The museum was founded in November 2012 by graduates Jean Sutton and Kate Cunningham in response to what they saw as a lack of recognition of women’s history in Ireland. The museum follows in the footsteps of similar initiatives in Washington and Australia.
Jean Sutton said “I’m delighted that we’ve decided to this – so far the respose has been so positive, I think there is a community out there really committed to giving Irish women’s history it’s proper place in our society”
The campaign launch will see the beginning of a move to highlight the impact of Ireland’s women writers, politicians, artists, entrepreneurs and change makers on the nation’s history. The launch will be celebrated with the museum’s inaugural exhibition titled “Monster’s of Creation”: Snapshots of Women in Higher Education with special guest Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness.
Taking inspiration from a quote in the 1896 Saturday Review “A learned girl is one of the most intolerable monsters of creation’ the exhibition brings together images from archives around the country of women in education from 1906 to current day, demonstrating the great strides that these “monsters of creation” have made in a century.
The museum will also see its website go live that same day with a series of articles highlighting Irish women’s history www.womensmuseumofireland.ie.
The launch will be preceded by a panel discussion on Women in Higher Education with Professor Susan Parkes, Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness, Judge and Activist and Jean Sutton, founding member of the Women’s Museum of Ireland. Chaired by Hannah McCarthy, Auditor College Historical Society, this discussion will take place in the Uí Chadhain theatre, Trinity Arts Block.
The Women’s Museum of Ireland is a project that aims to promote the formal recognition of the role of women in Irish history as well as the role of Irish women abroad. The museum hopes to educate the public about the contributions of women to cultural, political and social history in Ireland, and the role Irish women have played overseas.
Press Enquiries:
Kate Cunningham
kate@womensmuseumofireland.ie or 087 2598026