About the exhibition

The Our Irish Women exhibition is a network-wide project undertaken by members of the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act (1918). This Act extended a limited form of suffrage to women in Ireland for the first time.

The Suffragist movement and the lobbying of women’s groups drove the extension of the Parliamentary and Local Government franchise in Ireland and in Britain. You can find out more in the  books listed below.

Early in 2018, it was decided that each group in the network would research a woman (or women) that had in some way contributed to their community, county or country. These mostly unknown stories were curated by the network and exhibited in the Courtyard Gallery @ the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life during October and November 2018, and then toured to each community in the network over 2019.

You can view the exhibition panels here

Further reading

Hayes, Alan and Meagher, Máire (eds.), A Century of Progress?  Irish Women Reflect  (Galway: Arlen House, 2017)

Ward, Margaret, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: Suffragette and Sinn Feiner (Dublin: UCD Press, 2017)

Watkins, Sarah-Beth, Ireland’s Suffragettes: The Women who Fought for the Vote (Dublin: The History Press, 2014)