 Welcome, everyone. I'm Don Farage, president here at the University, and this is a series of talks we're having this year under the theme of talking about race, gender, and power. So lots of things fall under this umbrella, and tonight we have a special treat. A hundred years ago, a woman named Hannah, well you see the name here, Hannah, she, Skeffington, came to this country, 1917, on a speaking tour. It was a year after her husband, an editor in Ireland, had been killed by the British during the 1916 uprising. And she was both a suffragette and a nationalist, so she was carrying a lot of weight on her shoulders, and came to speak in this country. Because it was a time where in much of the Western Europe and the United States, women were vying for the right to vote, and it was a contentious era. And at the same time, Ireland was vying to get independent of England, so there was a lot that was going on at that era. A lot of controversy during Hannah's visit to this country. She was fetid in some areas and assailed in others. One point was threatened with being kidnapped and taken to Canada, the horror, and then taken back to Ireland. That didn't actually happen, but the point is it was not a time that we can easily relate to 100 years later. And sometimes it's just useful to be able to look back and think about what life was like 100 years ago, especially for women who were completely disenfranchised. So here we are, 2017, 100 years later, and Hannah's granddaughter, Micheline, is in a sense repeating her grandmother's quest. She's not visiting every site, but she's going to a number of cities around the country. She's traveled by boat from Ireland to the United States, just as her grandmother did. And revisiting some of the same sites that her grandmother spoke out 100 years ago. And in the process, kind of recapturing the era and the issues that were so important at that time. But it isn't just a revisit of her grandmother's experience, because Micheline has had her own adventures. She ended up suing her employer for gender discrimination, for failure to, she works for a university, for failure to be promoted based on her gender. So there's something going on in this family that, it's a feisty group, and her position is women have come a long way, but they're not all the way there yet. And so with that, I want to take pleasure in introducing Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington. Thanks very much. That was a wonderful introduction. Thank you President Farage and Mrs. Farage for how I was hosted to a wonderful dinner as well in the President's House. So hopefully I'll be still coherent after it. Yes, I suppose I do come from a long line of troublemakers and jailbirds, and I've learned to be proud of it. In fact, my grandmother was left-handed like me, and I was told when I was small, because I remember kind of looking up at my father that you inherited this and your grandmother, was proud when she was smashing windows in Dublin Castle, I explained that later. They automatically immobilized her right hand and she was able to have another go with her left hand. And it's only later you realize, well actually maybe not many young girls are told to be proud of their grandmother who went to prison for smashing windows. But I think that sense of family pride in doing something, doing action, she's even quoted in the press when she was over here in the states of saying, you know, my father and my uncle Eugene, they were Phenians, they went to prison. Owen, my son, who was with her when she came, he's used to visiting his parents in prison. So there was a kind of a pride in it, and it's not that unusual I think for Irish families, given our history of rebellion and that, but certainly my family had. So yes, I'm here because I'm trying to commemorate what Hannah did, because what she did in the states is little known in Ireland. She's known mostly as a feminist and as a suffragette, and I really want to try and have that a little bit more put on the map. But I'd better get through it because there's a lot of stories to tell, and some I may just not tell and say, ask me about it later because otherwise you'll be here for too long a time. I want to try and shorten it. So many of you will know that we had a revolution in 1916 in Easter week, as President Farage said, and the first days to Monday, the leaders, Patrick Pierce, the leader read out the proclamation, which was declaring a republic in Ireland and saying we're going to fight now to establish this and started, they started the fighting, occupied the general post office, the GPO and lots of buildings. But I thought it was interesting, there are just two pieces here I pulled out from it, the republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens. Now that word citizen I'll come back to. A permanent, also to establish a permanent national government representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all the men and women. So that proclamation read in 1916 was well ahead of its time. It was saying that all men and women, because even then men didn't have all the vote, only men of property over the age of 30 or 32 could vote, and this is saying everybody's going to elect our national government. So it's quite a radical proclamation. It's worth reading, it's quite short relative to most constitutions in that, but what I say is I know my grandparents had every bit to do with particularly that last sentence. They were not in competence in the rising, they were very much in favor of independence, they were also very friendly with several of the leaders of the rising, and several of the leaders were very sympathetic to women getting vote inequality, so I think they were all the one, and I'm sure that they had a hand, if not a hand, certainly a part in the phrasing of that. So who were my grandparents? Just briefly, Hannah is here on the far left. She was the eldest of a family of five, six siblings, and her father, David, she is here, and her uncle Eugene, and Eugene was the priest in the family and bolted them, as I said, were Finians, and they had fought during the Finian rising in the 1867, and been to prison, basically bolted them for that. Bessie McCoy, who became Bessie Sheehy Elizabeth McCoy, I've learned recently also came from a line of rebels, because her brothers were imprisoned in Kilmainham in Dublin as well, and the local priest in Bally-Hahel in County Limerick, where she grew up, which wasn't far from where the Sheehy's grew up, the local priest refused to say the rosary to pray for their well-being, and so she said, right, well I'm going to leave the rosary, we'll come back to the church later on this evening and I'll leave the rosary. So this is a 16-year-old who defies the local priest to leave the rosary for her rebel brothers, so there's quite a bit of rebel in her, and indeed her sister, Kate Barry, as she became, also was involved in the Ladies' Land League. The Land League was founded by Michael Davit, and that was to help support people who were being evicted, because the landed people, the landed gentry, were finding that people weren't being able to pay their rent. But remember that David and Eugene were born in the early 1840s, their early childhood lived through the great hunger time. 1845 was our great hunger in Ireland, and they lived through that and the hardship that it was afterwards, and people were being evicted because they couldn't afford to pay the rent. So the Land League was working with those people and also trying to encourage them to be housed and building temporary huts and things like that to get them housed. So there's a grassroots movement, and Michael Davit who founded it was very aware that you can't have a revolution without having the grassroots with you. And he was there for the hero of my grandfather, who I'll talk about in a minute. But this is perhaps not surprising. Hannah tells of how as children they lived, she was born in Cork, but she grew up in Lochmore and County Tipperary for her early years. They used to play at evictions in the mill where they lived, and they said nobody wanted to act as the bailiffs, everybody wanted to be the poor evicted family. And this is a stitchwork which is done by Hannah Sheehy when she was aged eight, and it says, My Land League Hut. So was this a class project? Did she do it on her own? But it certainly shows that she was definitely going to house the poor evicted people in something pretty grand. It's an amazing piece of work, and that's aged eight. So she's quite aware of injustices and wants to play a role obviously in Ireland as it was going to emerge. And I think it sets a little bit of the picture of how she grew up and thought. Francis then was very different. He had a different upbringing. He was born in County Cavern, and then the family moved very soon to down Patrick in County Down, which is where his father was from. And the father was a schools inspector, and it says a lot about what he thought about the schools because he didn't send Frank to school at all. He brought him up at home. He was very well taught. Frank himself says that his father was his best teacher, educator, and he was very widely read. And aged 11, the young Frank said, well, yeah, I got first interested in feminism because I read a thing by W.T. Stead about Gladstone. It was one of the British leaders. And Stead said that Gladstone had done nothing for women. So the 11-year-old thinks, oh, yes, we should do something for women. So it kind of shows what kinds of people they were going to grow up to with their thinking like that in their youth. Frank was unconventional in every way. And I think some of it might have to do with the fact that he didn't have the sibling pressure. You know, when you're in school, you want to conform, you want to be like your friends and all of that. I don't know. He might have been like that anyway. But he stood out. It wasn't that unusual to have plus fours, but he was definitely one of the few that wore them all the time. And he said it could get about easier on a bicycle. But actually it was a matter of principle that he never conformed to formal dress. He actually turned down a small job in the university because he would have had to have worn a formal frock coat. He said, no, that's against my principles. He was a very strong nationalist, as Hannah was indeed. Wanting independence from Britain, quite fervently. An ardent feminist, as I've said. A socialist, as Hannah was as well. So the land league and the people's rights and socialism for everybody was his thing. But he was even more than Hannah. He was a pacifist. She was a pacifist. They didn't believe in combat, and I'll come back to that. He was a militant pacifist. People think that being pacifist, the same as being a pacifist, he was anything but. He was also a vegetarian, a tea totler, an anti-vivor sectionist. And people used to say, you know, he's just an old crank. I mean, people liked him, but a crank. And he'd say, yes, a crank is a small instrument that causes revolutions. So it was imperturbable. He didn't care what people thought about him. He just wanted to get his message across. Whatever it was he was campaigning for, he would keep doing it. And that's actually immortalizing James Joyce in portrait of the artist. He's McCann, or Joyce used to call him Harry Jesus. They were at college together. Joyce was a little bit younger, but they knew each other. They were all, Hannah's brothers were in school with Joyce. So they knew each other. So that's Harry Jesus. I think it's a good picture. He's with William O'Brien here. And they're deep in political discussion, I think. And Frank is going around with some kind of print, newsprint, because he was always publishing things and getting ideas out and getting discussion going. So his first publication was a separate pamphlet because he was refused publication in the university magazine. He was by then a student in the Royal University, who's now UCD in Dublin. And his piece was a forgotten aspect of the university question. And the same James A. Joyce had written something as well, totally different, quite a pompous piece about the rabble getting into the arts and all of that. But both were rejected. So they came together and said, right, well let's get this published together. So Frank's one is this forgotten aspect of the university question. And of course it's about equality for women. Because the women students were not allowed to attend lectures with the men. God forbid that they might distract the men. They were in different buildings, somewhere else on the other side of Stevens Green. But also, as he says, he has statistics showing that women, of course, were getting at least as many honors degrees as the men. But they weren't allowed into the society. So the big debating society that Frank and Joyce and indeed Tom Kettle, who was a barrister and a well-known orator, they were part of and revived, the women couldn't even come to their meetings. So that was real exclusion. And he says that in that. So I'd like to say, as I come back to it again later, that aspect of the university question is still a bit forgotten. And it's kind of interesting. It was his first publication. So it's not surprising that Hannah and Frank, Hannah became amazed and disgusted when she was in university and realized she hadn't got the vote. She hadn't really, I suppose, thought about it truly. And then realized, I want to make a change in Ireland. And yet I can't even have that fundamental right to make a change. I haven't got the vote. So she was a strong feminist anywhere and she realized the campaign for the vote is the most fundamental thing we must do. And it's not surprising they found common cause. And in 1903 they got married. And what's interesting is that they each took each other's name. Francis Skeffington became Sheehy Skeffington and Hannah Sheehy became Sheehy Skeffington. I won't ask the men in the audience to put up their hands who've taken their wives' names. But it is very unusual. And his family was really kind of put out by diluting the good Skeffington name. The Sheehy family took it a little bit more in their stride. But that's where the name comes from. And we were just debating if Frank seemed to sign with a hyphen. A lot of us don't. But it's a feminist statement, if you like. The interesting thing is that my mother knew Hannah and not Frank because he was murdered, as the president said, in 1916. She said that this was their wedding photograph. Now, there's two things. I think it's the first formal photo taken after they were married, which is a different thing. It's done in the studio, which was always done in those days. It was probably not what they wore at their wedding. They were married in the university church on Stevens Green. But in those days it was really important for women to show that they were graduates. They had only been granted access to the university for about 20 years prior to that. And so if they had a degree, they often had pictures taken of themselves with the gowns. And these are their MA gowns. And I suspect Frank is wearing his in solidarity. So this is equality. Because they're married, this is the kind of statement they have. So it's kind of interesting to see that. It's not quite their wedding photo, but still. So they're impatient with the fact that they had joined the Irish Women's Local Suffrage and Local Government and Suffrage Association, which was kind of writing letters to the Irish Party, which was represented, of course. Remember, the Parliament is in London. Hannah's father was in the Irish Party. And the Irish Party really wanted home rule, which was the kind of idea of independence or independent rule, if you like, in Ireland. And it didn't want the suffrage, this women's business, to get in the way. It might jeopardize yet another attempt to get the home rule bill through. So the younger women, remember, these are all young students. They're 20-something-year-olds. It's a kind of letter writing. And this side, Hannah and Margaret Cousins, founded the Irish Women's Franchise League. This is Hannah on the left. This is actually Meg Connery. And that is the banner that they had, which is part of it. But this is actually what it looked like. I grew up with this in the corner somewhere. I didn't have as much respect as I should have had it. It's now in the National Museum in Dublin. If you're ever there, go and ask to see it. It's not on display. It will be on a touring display during next year, because it's the anniversary of Ireland with Britain getting the vote for women. There's several things about this. The colours, they're mindful of what's happening in England, in Britain. The suffrage movement was very active and had started being more proactive before the Irish ones were. But their colours were green and purple. So people think, oh, the suffrage colours are green and purple. Well, actually, the suffrage colours here are purple and gold. So there are different colours. And this here, as you realise, these are the Irish colours, green and orange, was the statement of Republic and independence. We're all for doing the same thing, but this is Ireland, and we're having different colours. This, of course, is the kind of Gaelic revival embroidery. And it was done by the Dunneimer Guild, which was set up by the Yates sisters, WB Yates and Jack Yates's sisters. So very much into reviving the culture of Ireland with the shamrock. And then you've got Kamanakti Gore, Karam and Amman on the other side, be it the front or the back. And they were very proud of that. They brought it to London. There's a picture of them all with it in London. And having it in Irish, I think, is really interesting. Now, the interesting thing is the translation there is not suffrage or franchise. It's justice. The association in favour of justice for women. I don't know enough to know whether that is deliberate or not, but it's an interesting way of phrasing it. So that's a kind of Republican suffrage statement, if you like. So the franchise league started to be more proactive. And they would harangue people. And they started to... It was a platform which I grew up with, which was a fold-out platform and said votes for women on it. And Hannah would be one of them. They just speak out anywhere and everywhere. Remember, in those days, people couldn't afford to rent halls. People spoke in public all the time in various places. Phoenix Park was a popular place because people could gather there. And they just went around and basically had to face the crowd. They had tomatoes thrown at them. They had heckling. They had everything. Thank God nobody's done that to me yet here. But, you know, it was hard. But they cut their teeth on that and it was always the women who, you know, put forward their right to have the vote, which is, of course, important. They're articulate enough for themselves. And he was getting frustrated of not getting published enough to cover everything that the women were doing. And some of you may know that and I know it as a campaign or, you know, a campaign I'll talk about later. That is very hard to get it covered in the press. So he found their citizen with James Cousins, whose Margaret Cousins husband. And they... This is just one particular front page of it. And you see here that's the picture of Hannah again. And this is Margaret Cousins also with her graduation gown. So that was quite common. And then the picture is women, nationalist, unionist, militant, non-militant from London, Belfast and so on. That isn't the point I'm making, but the actual citizen. The banner headline at the top was on the front page of every issue of the citizen. And this is pure frank. Four men and women equally the rights of citizenship. From men and women equally the duties of citizenship. And that was something I think that was inculcated in the family. My father really felt that you had to have a duty to do right by your fellow human beings. It wasn't enough just to have an equal right. And sometimes we tend to think, yeah, yeah, I want my rights. I want my rights. Yeah, but you have a duty to do something with that right. And I think that's pure frank to say, yeah, we need to do more to make things better for the less advantage in our society. And the vote could do that in particular. The other thing, I don't know if it strikes you, I mentioned the word citizen. Does that strike you as unusual if you know anything about what I've been saying or Irish history generally? It's Irish people were not citizens. They were subjects of the crown. They were not independent. A citizen is like here where you've got a republic and independence. They're not subjects of a crown. The British are not citizens. The Spanish are not citizens. The French are. They have a republic. So it's quite a strong statement again because Ireland is not independent. So this is another thing. Somebody pointed this out once when I gave a talk in Boston College and I thought, yeah, of course. So again, subtly kind of getting the message across while still talking about the equal rights for women. So at the same time then, as I was mentioning at the beginning, the women were getting impatient, nothing was happening and they said right, we're going to do like what they're doing in London and we're going to smash windows when the British are arrested. Hannah said, I want to smash windows in Dublin Castle because that was the seat of British power. I'm going to have a go at the British while I'm at it. Smash their windows while I'm doing it. The elders went to the custom house in different buildings and then that's when the story is that Hannah managed to get another go at the Dublin Castle windows before she was obviously taken away and of course the real thing was to get themselves noticed, to get themselves covered in the press to the citizen covered it in a women's suffragette smash windows this first time in Dublin that's happened and it gets noticed. They get sentenced they got about six weeks each and they were in different cohorts and Hannah and three or four others were sentenced first and in June, I think it was the Prime Minister of England came over, asked with and two English suffragettes came over with them and threw a mock hatchet at his carriage and of course got themselves arrested intermount joy prison with the women but what do the English suffragettes do but they promptly go on hunger strike on this consternation amongst the Irish women because this is their first time in prison they're only just getting used to being locked away and suddenly there's these women doing what they were doing already in England, going on hunger strike and they decided in the end that Hannah was one of the, her cohort was about actually to be released they'd served all but five days of their term so they decided that they would go on solidarity on hunger strike they didn't really expect to do it and she said it was kind of, you know I didn't know tea had a smell but the one thing she was worried about was she'd hear a group of people a body of people coming down the corridor and she was in fear and dread that they were going to come and force feed her because that's what they were doing in London but they were force feeding the suffragettes who were in so to prevent them you know dying obviously but prevent them losing weight and losing that violent thing to do as it happens they didn't force feed her they released her and that's her release she looks a bit weak and thin that's Frank and I noticed Uncle Eugene the one who meets her I don't know who the man at the back is but her Uncle Eugene's they're not her father he's always much more supportive of whatever she did but as soon as they released the Irish women they force fed the English suffragettes and it was interesting they weren't to know that because you know it might have changed they never actually did force feed the Irish women on Irish soil just obviously just a step too far they knew that that might just cause trouble they force fed Irish women in England and English women wherever but not there so she was released without the force feeding but the two English were force fed so not a great scenario so that's kind of what's going on through Dublin there's many suffragettes they were also being sent down to the country because they'd have rallies outside my joy prison it was causing too much of a rumpus so they sent them to the Moore jail and so on this is all ongoing this is the next time Hannah got arrested and I think this is a great bit of photo journalism this is Meg Connery this is the Irish citizen she has questions for boner law he was the chair of the conservative party at the time this is 1913 and she's obviously going to ask him what the hell is he doing about women and women's vote this you might recognize this uncompromising gent as Edward Carson staunch unionist probably even in the east in Dublin this is on the green Ivy house and then of course the policeman rushing to grab her and arrest her but what my mother told me is that Hannah told her that the people here looking into the middle distance she was in the crowd equally about to do something and the policeman saw her and arrested her before she actually managed to do anything at all and she was raging she said the next time I get arrested I'm going to deserve it because she was thrown in prison she hadn't done anything except just be arrested so I think it's a good piece and a good story to tell I don't know if boner law actually managed to take the things but I don't think he did much about it even if he did so ongoing activism but then of course the next year is the outbreak of the first world war and that's the British suffragettes kind of down to set right we got to do our thing for the war effort the Irish women so well that's British war we're not at war with Germany we're Irish we're not going to stop campaigning for the equal right for vote so they carried on right through it but Frank is the pacifist so this is what the poster he brought out so the poor man believed I think once we got the vote that maybe we'd have an end to war I say we haven't had equality yet so perhaps we will someday end to war sadly I'm not sure there's a story about this which I might tell you later if you ask me because it could take a while but it involves his five year old son being kind of involved in protecting this poster at home but as I say I fear to go on too long and I think we'll leave it and entertain you for another minute at the end if you're still awake it's very warm in here I notice so yeah he's campaigning against the war and what he does as a pacifist he says I don't want British recruitment in Ireland this is the British war I'm against war I'm a pacifist but also it's your war it's not ours I don't want Irish people being recruited and of course the British had had quite enough of that after 40 speeches round town again and he were public that he could they arrested him and tried him for seditious speeches because they're at war you can't do this and he just wanted to get his message across basically now at the same time or the next year and I just want to put this in first is that this is an open letter Thomas McDonough was one of the signatories of the proclamation that I put up one of the seven he was a good friend of Frank they were they taught in St. Kieran's College in Kilkenny and they were perhaps the closest but with Connolly I think those three or four my Hannah as well and so then McDonough had actually spoken at a franchise league meeting and Frank says in this open letter he says I didn't join the volunteers which was grouping up for to try and have a rebellion on feminist grounds because the volunteers didn't let women be part of it the common man was the women's group Hannah didn't join common man because she refused to be a member of a body that was ostensibly subservient to the decision making body so neither joined either they all had similar ideas it's not like they were completely separate and he said I'm glad I didn't now because it sounds like you're arming up and it's far too militaristic what you said the last time at the franchise league meeting and it's a famous thing was actually put online by the Irish Times again last year in 1916 and he says can you not conceive of a body of people grouped together with one single objective and one focus but which does not have as its fundamental objective I shall kill my fellow human beings in other words can you find another way to do this every bit behind you I want independence I'm not prepared to kill for my objectives so the parallel so it's not just anti-Britain it's anti-war that he's talking about so he's sent to prison he's stride and he's sentenced to six months hard labour he defends himself couldn't afford anything else but also he saw it as an opportunity he's very into dialogue, speech getting people to discuss things that's how you resolve things and in a way he's right people could manage that it often doesn't come to that until after fighting and he then says I'll soon be out of prison alive or dead promptly goes on hunger strike and he's held in prison for a while and then he goes on thirst strike now if you know anything about thirst strike that's really dangerous and so the British realise we'd better release this man because he's popular he's well known he's a Republican if he dies in prison this would be not good so he was released while he was on hunger strike and it just shows that he's not afraid to put his own life in danger because again you think pacifists are just running away from things, no he just wasn't prepared to kill and he put his own life in danger again during the rising trying to save a British officer who had been killed thirst, he didn't drink thirst strike, yeah please stop me if you didn't I'm probably talking a little bit fast no, yes trying to get through I do, I know and there we do say it sometimes we say thirst thirst so he didn't drink so you don't survive that for long so he was released and he was actually released under what was known as the cat and mouse act which they had brought in to dissolve the tension around the British hunger strikers it was the temporary release due to ill health act and if you were in ill health which you would be if you're not eating for several days then you could be released but you could be taken in without charge without trial and put back in prison so it was like a cat playing with a mouse and taking it back in again and it was a real clever way to diffuse the whole thing, he was released and he said I'm on holidays, he came to the states and said I'm on holidays under the cat and mouse act because he realized he couldn't really be active in Ireland because he would have been just put in prison again and he didn't see the point of that so he actually came over and he was in the states in 1915 got very active and things met, loads of feminist Republican, obviously groups, nationalists and everything and kind of set up a bit of a network there and he said it's wonderful here and the telephone is just amazing we must have one when we come back obviously communication and all that so he was impressed with the states I came home at Christmas time and then of course Connolly says to them both if you want a bit of interest then stick around for Easter week 1916 so they stay around the rising is declared on Easter Monday and they both go into town and Hannah actually goes to the GPO, she doesn't take up arms but she helps with messages and all doing things and Frank realizes that there's a lot of people looting the shops and it's interesting because he didn't care about property but he cared about the image of the rising and he actually went to the GPO and said what's going on with these looters it's terrible, it's a bad image and they said yeah we know we've actually been trying to stop them we've been firing over their heads but you know we're kind of busy here so do what you can but we don't seem to be able to stop them so they were of a mind that this didn't look good because the British press would immediately seize on that and say this is just a bunch of Irish rabble rousers and there's nothing in it we're only people trying to get loot shops so it was that intention that he was doing and he did that on two days in a row on a Tuesday walking home he was taken off the street by one of the British officers he lived, he had to pass Portobello barracks where the British were at the stage and because he was well known you know oh that's she, Skeffington let's just take him off the street they weren't being very rational they were just taking people who were in the boat and then that evening he was taken out because there was a curfew and the Captain Bourne Coulters took him out from his cell he had no permission to do this and his huge hands tied behind his back and they were firing around the streets just to try and prevent snipers firing at them and the Captain reckoned that if they were fired on that they would realise that she, Skeffington would be shot so he's a hostage to kind of keep people from firing at them and then they met two boys two teenage boys coming from a church and challenged them, what are you doing this is a curfew you're not supposed to be out on that and I don't know what they did but one of them anyway God knows, teenage boys 17 and Coulters just said bash him to one of his soldiers and the soldier just got his butt in his rifle and hit him and it transpired he broke his jaw boy fell to the ground Coulters puts out a pistol and shoots him dead now in anybody's book that's murder Frank pacifist standing there hands behind his back makes a whole speech about this and how appalling this is and one of the soldiers said he was really eloquent and brave and Coulters says you shut up mate you're next or something along that line spent the night reading the bible found something as one does in the bible which suits you take forth enemies and slay them, something like that and he took them out the next day again without permission quite clearly and brought them into the backyard of the garden and shot a firing squad and two other journalists were taken out Dixon and Patrick McIntyre they were only shot because they were journalists and what seems to be is that Coulters realized this man is a journalist he's a pacifist he's outspoken he's after witnessing something that's wrong I've got to get rid of him but there's two other journalists they're going to write about this I've got to get rid of them as well and Hannah never heard formally ever what happened to Frank and that's the she was pointing to a full inquiry here because there was never a full inquiry about what happened to him she wanted the whole truth about what happened and the house was raided two days later so this is the 28th of April 1916 he was shot on the 26th looking for evidence against the man they shot murdered this is Coulters I certify that this was found in Skeffington's house JC Bone Coulters captain 28th of April that's the boy's drawing fascinated with Zeplins these are supposed to be German flags they were German sympathizers this is evidence against the man they've just murdered and for some reason that got returned to Hannah she didn't get all his papers back but that's the sort of level of it and of course she never got the truth to the full inquiry he was tried he was promoted first and then he was finally arrested tried guilty but insane and Hannah was maintained he's not insane and I think that's what she would have said is a man who can calculate okay that was murder this man's a journalist he's witnessed it he's outspoken I've got to get rid of him and then there's two journalists I've got to get rid of them he's not that insane it's all calculated and of course being sentenced insane he was sent to Broadmoor for the insane and he was released two years later and went to Vancouver in Canada I'm going to go to Vancouver I've got a cousin there and we're going to try and maybe just discuss we can't find the Colter's family but he lived out his life boasting about what he'd done in Ireland so Hannah's going through trying to find out what's happened she went to Prime Minister Asquit in London and she said I want the truth that sentencing was not right I want a full inquiry and he said oh no that's not possible you couldn't possibly have a proper inquiry would you take 10,000 pounds and that's about the equivalent of nearly a million dollars today she didn't even hear the sum she said I'm not interested in hush money I want the truth this ought to come out in public and there was a public inquiry it wasn't full truth Colter's wasn't there, key witnesses were in there she wasn't happy with it at all she said right I'm going to the States I'm going to tell the truth the trouble was the British said you can't have a passport so this she went to Glasgow she disguised herself and her son Owen they went to Glasgow through Northern Ireland and appeared in Glasgow the Skinnerder family received her and she got the persona of Mrs. Mary Gribbon who had emigrated maybe a year earlier and this is a passport photo and it says on the back I swear by almighty God that this is Mrs. Mary Gribbon and then it's signed so and so P.P. so a parish priest she went back up the fact that Mary Gribbon is about to sail to the States so she set sail and this is really my adventure now is to try and find out and think what it was like herself and Owen set sail in December 1916 the Lusitania had been sunk the seas were full of submarines the Laconia was sunk not long after it's in the headlines while her speech is being covered she didn't know if she was going to be admitted she didn't know if she was going to be arrested Owen is actually very sick a quirky reason which again I'll explain later Owen had acquired a Glasgow accent so she pushed Owen in front and got him to speak away because obviously she's trying to be a Glaswegian but she has an Irish accent so she kind of kept her low profile I suspect on the ship and then landed as I said well I didn't I said this evening ships don't land in Ellis Island she was second class so she was let off in Manhattan third class passengers are shipped to Ellis Island and processed there and the ships manifest is brought with them and is entered in Ellis Island but Ellis Island people don't actually she didn't go there but she was set free and I think the states were kind of as one of the men in Ellis Island said George Sellos he said well she wasn't a criminal like criminals had warrants for arrest she wasn't a criminal the British wanted her arrested but you know so they let her free and then within a day Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington is in the hotel Earl in downtown Manhattan in terrible state of fragility I think that was a smokescreen I don't think she was at that stage please don't go near her and within weeks she filled Carnegie Hall in a place with book Carnegie Hall was actually I learned quite open to people activists feminists were using it but there was a big cohort of people and I've learned that probably a lot of the people who knew Frank came Americans who'd heard all about not all about it but wanted to hear all about what had happened in 1916 came socialists all groups of people came to that it was a memorial for Frank Sheehy Skeffington it wasn't one cohort and it was pretty amazing and I was there and I actually stood on the stage we were taken backstage to do that we couldn't film you know cost eight grand eight thousand dollars I think we won't film there but we stood on the stage and just imagine what it was like the whole place was full of people there was lots of cheers and support for her I think then she must have realized right I'm launched I don't have to be in Cognito I'd be Hannah Sheehy Skeffington and she went on she didn't know probably even then that she stayed for 18 months and toured all around the United States she went to 21 different states and made about 250 speeches about Irish calls basically her title was British Militarism and I have known it that's her and Owen I just want to point out that there's a Foley's everywhere EF Foley and it says 5th presumes 5th Avenue the photographs where is she it's thanks to the Foley's I'm here so that's they were obviously journalists and taking photos and things that's the two of them arrived but Owen's been decked out in fancy new tweed suit and the tower approach and everything there's no way that they had the money for any of that and so that's just a companion of cuttings and things and again I could tell you maybe later there was a she tells of an attempt to kidnap her it's reported in the Chicago or not in the Chicago press but some newspaper that has it it's a cutting she has in her paper so I don't even know what paper it came out of the idea was that somebody some group tried to lure her onto a train in a town near the border on her way to Buffalo and that train was bound for Canada if she got into Canada she would have been arrested it was a British protectorate I know I've seen letters where they say don't come to Alaska because you'll have to go through Canadian waters and not quite she wouldn't have gone overland but they said don't so there was that fear all the time the British were kind of only too ready to arrest her so that's the story in a nutshell if you like so she went over to San Francisco several times Owen in the end came with her and went to school in California which was a better climate he'd started in Connecticut and he stayed there while she continued to go back and over and in San Francisco she filled the dreamland auditorium which had a capacity of 8000 several times and her entire speech is printed on the broadsheets of the front page you know so people were really interested in what she had to say but when she went back she filled the auditorium and then within days she was asked by the machinists society in the San Francisco labor society to support Tom Mooney Tom Mooney was in the industrial workers of the world these are the Wobblies these were the socialist workers activists they were really radical and Mooney had been framed for a bomb that had gone off in San Francisco he hadn't actually been in the town at the time of the city and he was in prison and it shows how much Hannah was held in regard because she's asked to speak as keynote speaker for this and she was more than willing and that I think is one of the things I want to explore in the documentary is her socialist feminist connections maybe a lot of her talk was about Ireland at that time but she had connections and supported the socialist groups very much so as well and it's my thought is that around that time she no longer was able to get venues for talks she was actually arrested out of one venue saying oh she's speaking against our ally Britain but actually Britain was an ally since US joined the war in 1917 and this is March 1918 so I think this might have been the turning point the newspapers were probably owned by Irish people the ones that were publishing her they were property owners they were important industrials they did not like the support of the IWW that's just a guess as she realised at that point it was time to go back she wasn't getting traction anymore as we say nowadays and this is the Sinn Fein executive she joined Sinn Fein and only later was she on the executive that's her on the far left you might recognise these boys here in the middle Kathleen Lynn, Dr. Kathleen Lynn Meg Connery, Jenny Wise Power interesting there were four women when Sinn Fein the executive was being set up which was while Hannah was away they were going to have six male prisoners six of this, six of that and the women said well we want six women on it they said no we want six women and in the end they had to go and occupy the Sinn Fein's offices and then they said oh okay you can have four places and obviously someone had left or left Hannah was on it there but there was no extra numbers only four so that's really what I want to finish with is in that finish this side I want you to just have a few slides about my own campaign but that Hannah never got that recognition and I think one of the reasons was because the men were taking the winnable seats in an election that year she was offered a seat in North Antrim which was way off North East Ireland she didn't know anybody there she said I'm not wasting my time the men got the seats in Dublin Countess Markowitz did get a seat and won it but none of the women were actually offered anything they could win and certainly she would have been a hell of a lot of work she said I'm not doing that and she never ever did get that kind of recognition which she would have had the proclamation being involved they actually said there's a lot of quality there but these were not quite so radical to say the least in Sinn Fein you can sort of see the body language and the expressions on these guys when they say no more so that's why I'm doing this tour but I also want to say that my grandparents and indeed my parents inspired me when it came around to me seeing injustice that maybe there's still a fight ongoing and this might resonate with some of you I'm talking about gender equality issues obviously in society not just in academia that's NUI Galway formerly UCG and I took a case against NUIG in 2009 and this was the data that I put together for the equality tribunal and you can see the junior post fixed term lecturers who kind of contracts junior lecturer more than 50% female college lecturer which is where I was eternally and then senior lecturer big drop and associate professor that's where the glass ceiling is and I was trying four times in a row for over a space of eight, nine years to try and get promotion and I wasn't getting it and I couldn't understand so I said how many women were promoted in this round 2009 it was the second time I was deemed suitable but they said oh the government hasn't embargo so we can only promote 17 out of the 30 people deemed suitable and I said well how many women were promoted and I still remember the register looking down the list and it took him a few minutes and he said one and he even looked a bit surprising he obviously went down the list because I realised afterwards that she was ranked number 17 out of 17 so I saw red and I said I'm going to take a case, win or lose I'm going to use my grandmother's name it'll get into the papers suffragettes, granddaughter takes case and as it happened I won and it was quite a landmark case because it was quite a difficult case to prove and the point I would make is that actually the lawyers helped me, Barrister said you've got to prove you're better than any one of those 16 men or equal to but it was me that did that they framed it in terms of the law and all of that and they were useful they gave me that advice which was essential I won the case I reckon because all the ruling stuff that I pulled out comparing people and all of that 30 people deemed suitable and my first thing was where is the university spreadsheet there's no information about how I got the marks I did nothing, all I got back was the notes taken at my interview so that was what I'd said actually miss Covid so this is just briefly there's just one more table and a couple of things just to show that this can be fun so 32 men applied so you think well less women applied so you'd have less women being promoted and then you can see here this is what it is and you'll notice that even proportionately less women were shortlisted and deemed suitable this is the 30 here seven of us one woman promoted six of us not I won my case there's five other women I know they deserve promotion it's thanks to them that the campaign's ongoing because I won the case but this helps when you do manipulate figures or not manipulate but you work with figures that's bad enough but when you look at the proportion you see well actually yeah that 16 is 50% the one is less than 10% of the women and every single time at the last four rounds of promotions proportionately less women were promoted than men so there's a bias there there is a favor of something and what they were actually doing was promoting guys who were fitting a certain category which was to boost the rankings of the university in the times higher you know and that means you're selecting for people of a high international profile who bring in large amounts of money you know who focus on their research but that's all very well but you say they say that equally teaching and contribution to society and the university is equal but then they promoted people who had only done research and it said that compared to them I'd done much more teaching but they got higher marks than me so the rulings interesting I won't give you the whole detail of that but that's really what was happening so those five women still haven't been promoted there's still junior lecturers unbelievable this is nine years later that's them they've taken a case three four of them took to the high court one went to the labour court they're still fighting the university refuses to acknowledge that they should have been promoted in 2009 imagine your career prospects for us it's really important if you're a senior lecturer you can get more grants, you can get more profile you can get access to things because most of the men promoted at that time are now professors and virtually all the men who were not the seven who were not promoted along with the six are now promoted and one of those women got promoted last week only one it's appalling and they just refuse absolutely refuse to say that there's anything wrong so just a few slides the campaign is to support the women that's the council that signs off on all the academic things it's all professors nearly all male you saw the graph at the beginning heads of school there's a few women in there and there was great ructions inside because there were a few female professors inside at a meeting and we're outside making great and 81% male and the whole thing so it was fun and we got it even though it's pouring rain or driving rain you know it was fun this was a cartoon exhibition which again I can tell you all these stories one of them if you ask might not be time for them all but you can see it on the website it went up in town and it was a person who we don't know yet who started running this thing it started off as just a general thing about a university president of fictional character but once I won my case it started to be much more gendered and this is just one of them to show what it was about we've been taking a lot of heat on our gender discrimination issue so it's time to address the problem as only I can and then this is the press president says other universities almost as bad as us and he nearly did say that he went to the higher education authority and said it's where you know every it's a real national problem you should sort it out instead of actually admitting that we are bottom of the heap we're way worse than UCC and Cork which is second last Ireland is second last in the whole of Europe for percent senior female academics thanks to those women the campaign goes on it's about publicity it's about bad publicity if they had any sense they would have promoted them three years ago the campaign site they didn't like I wore t-shirt at the class today Mr. Brown's boys some of you may know about Mrs. Brown's boys which is a comedy show of Brennan O'Carroll plays Mrs. Brown quite slapstick the president of the university is called Jim Brown we had to but surprise surprise the feminist society booked the table they weren't allowed to display the t-shirts we had them here it was a nice big yellow display because the yellows just ended up being our color so okay we want to have t-shirts well we'll do up a big thing and this was much better so another own goal just and they had to they had they the women took it to the high court because they had no choice the deadlines had all run out and the high court was the last option they had so much bigger thing when I won my case I gave them the 70 thousand euros I was awarded I said you're going to need it far more than me to fight your cases it's about equality wasn't about me I got loads of money actually back pay and better pension I chucked the job by the way early which is great I was fed up at the place anyway so I left and then I won the case two months later I could speak out and talk about the place as obviously you can't as an employee so that was also and then this is just this one man in the local press Dara Bradley he's brilliant he just keeps coming at it and so this is one of the rankings things we're still bottom of the class like obviously Jim Brown thinks we're going up in the rankings but the rankings in terms of gender discrimination are not exactly they're still the same we're still bottom so the press do cover it sporadically they actually silence one of the press reporters in the Irish Times she does not and cannot cover our activities anymore don't know much about it but I think there was a phone call or two made she doesn't cover she said oh and I never seemed to get anything published anymore power silence truth the stuff that Hannah was talking about was far far worse but there's this silencing this people's in position of authority we don't want to know quiet let's move on you know it's the same kind of thing here far less dangerous so that's pretty well it to the last slide as well but if anybody is interested this is Michelin's three conditions again I won't explain what they are but we set up the campaign called that at wordpress.com they tried to shut down the campaign site at one point and wordpress said we're not interested it's only if it's pornography or you know incitement to hatred we're about freedom of expression you know because actually they were saying what we were saying was potentially defamatory and I was just saying with the students this morning well defamation is when it's not true website was saying nothing that wasn't true so that if you want to follow with the stuff ongoing you can read back through three years worth of blogs if you're still patient with that and then finally I just want to thank the National Library because all my early slides were taken by the National Library that's all in the archives the she's getting to an archive and then there's a fundraising site in digogo.com it's called Hannah and me passing on the flame that's the title running title for the documentary we need funds to bring it to fruition we've got funds to bring the camera crew over that's ongoing we'll get footage we then have to bring it back it's a small film company but we need funds so if you know any people business people that we're actually going to try and get a 501c3 which is a channel big donations big donations to make we get back to me but anyway spread the word because it would be great to have this documentary come out next year 2018 the centenary of women getting the vote in Ireland the centenary of it being passed in congress in washington in you know but it took another two years to have it ratified for the federal vote so that's it thanks very much for your patience thank you very much now we're going to open up for some questions let me ask the first that you mentioned a five year old boy who stops them from taking down that handbill or that newspaper tell me a bit about that it was the poster with said votes for women now damn your war so Frank puts this up in the front of his garden gate and it's torn down he puts it up and he's living in rat mines which is quite a conservative british kind of area but there's a few republican hotbeds so it's torn down again so in the end he says Owen would you stand by the gate and let me know if somebody comes out I'd like to have a discussion because he's all about dialogue I want to find out why this person is tearing it down and maybe talk to him or her about it so Owen I remember by father telling this story he was standing there some trepidation what's going to happen and he's still standing there and this elderly colonel comes from across the way and comes across the road and gently but firmly takes the five year old puts him aside and then with a golf club lacerates the poster and of course the five year old comes to and says oh god I better go in and tell my daddy and he goes in but of course by the time he's gone in and got his father the colonel's gone back into the house but it's kind of interesting that the five year old is set up and kind of likely politically aware and remembers it I mean he was kind of proud of being involved but at the time not sure he was so happy let's get a question Micheline do you feel that the gender discrimination at the university represents gender discrimination in the general Irish society or do you feel it's it's different from that for some particular reason yes to both I think obviously there is a discrimination in society but there is one thing that say in businesses now people are realizing that if women have an equal part in the directorship the business makes it does better and that's actually been said I saw someone stand up and say that in front of Jim Brown you know businesses learned it why haven't you society generally there was the abbey I don't know if you heard about the waking the feminists last year the abbey theater had a program of plays for 1916 the centenary and all but one were written by men and Lee and Belle in the abbey saw red she works back scenes and she said right we're going to all come to the abbey a whole load of people came and was called Waking the Feminist and they just had a big protest saying we've had enough we want women represented so there's a kind of slight snowball thing but that kind of snow blindness I mean I came across a small little book on the history of Ireland which had over 2,000 illustrations I counted I think five pictures of women and two of them were British Queens one of them was the Virgin Mary and one of course with the poor mother with children during the famine because they have to have a mother because people are starving and Mary Robinson was in the corner in back and white our former president but there was nothing about her it's just a picture I thought this is appalling it was relatively recent in the last since 2000 absolutely there's no consciousness of the images that are being portrayed there so yeah I mean it's everywhere you know things are far better there is representation people are beginning to you know realize that actually it helps and works when you got equality but the universities think about them as they're not answerable to anybody they have no board of trustees they have no shareholders they make their own decisions the academic council does it all we know everything we know what's best for the university so it's all done in that quant behind closed doors and that's difficult is trying to cut through that but the higher education authority has now also set up a task force and they have now said that if you don't win there's a particular award now for giving trying to ameliorate gender equality in the university called the Athena Swan it's in Britain and it's now come to Ireland if you haven't got the bronze which is the first in the rung you can't avail some of the funds I can tell you they're falling over themselves but NUIG has not got it yet again and I think it's there's a mention of the women in the court cases how can they get an award when they're still fighting women in the court for gender equality but that's great because once you start saying funding is going to be withheld if you don't get your act in order so yeah I don't know if that answers it but there's all nuances and things and it's a general thing there was a hand in front here as well so was James Joyce in favor of the feminist movement he wasn't I think he wasn't really political like there's even Portray's Frank getting the pacifist list and he wouldn't sign it he was quite disdainful of anything personally I don't actually know but I don't think he had much to do with it he wasn't against equality for women but he wasn't exactly someone who's going to act and vote for women what? yeah he was anti-war but he wouldn't sign anything that she's governed and wanted him to sign so yeah agreed he wasn't antagonistic he was you know supportive but I wouldn't consider ever having had done anything for equality but that's where I'm I'm implanted ecologist I don't know enough about James Joyce to know exactly about his personal life and that but that's my sense about it he certainly wasn't involved at all in the franchise league or any of that and in fact he left Ireland very soon after so Frank disapproved of him but that doesn't mean he wasn't a feminist you know he didn't approve of how he left with Nora and all of that but that was Frank being quite extreme at one end and Joyce by the other so now we're nearly 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement and given you know your grandparents you know involvement with nationalism with republicanism do you feel that today republicanism is still a strong part or part and parcel or even a factor in feminism within Ireland and the Irish identity feminism there's a well it is as always like it's not like even then there was never like you weren't feminist or republican so there were a lot of feminist republicans and there were feminist unionists the republican obviously during the troubles as we like to call it it was really you know because everybody was killing everybody and us in the south were wary of the north we didn't you know and things were going on terrible now it's at least the peace but it's a very we were just saying it over dinner that gets quite tenuous and with Brexit we don't know but I now I could stand corrected again I'm not in the north there were lots of you know what's her name Williams I think is actually involved and there's a launch of the Hannah's writings Margaret Ward her biographer has launched a book by and she's Monica McWilliams is launching it in Belfast now I'm not saying she's true green republican but you know there is a republican sense of feminism linked in that so yeah they're not detached but I don't know if it's we've seen as a very strong strand of things as lots of feminist republicans and as I say they don't have to be all republican either hi I'm an aspiring journalist photojournalist actually do you have any advice for young women who are hoping to go into that field you know with regard to feminism well I suppose you just look out for having I don't know much about it but look out for stories that maybe you know have a difference you know there might be some photojournalist who just think oh that's the women's thing I'm not going to bother but you know you'll find stories that interest you and photojournalism as you know some of the illustrators that had a really good way to tell a story so if you can see something that tells a feminist story then go for it and hopefully it'll get published I mean that's the problem and just keep be open to things you know be open to what you can see try not to do you know like get sucked into doing weddings when you end up getting sucked into covering sport or that which is fine I think the image we use here is done by a female sports journalist so run down sport but there's all kinds of things and ways in which you could probably cover it that might have a feminist angle and that'll be obvious even without you actually saying anything that's my sense I don't know look out for it and see if it's a challenge Hi I was actually studying at UCD last semester abroad and I was surprised that three out of the five professors I had were women but none of them were Irish and the two men that I had were Irish so I was wondering if you knew where UCD ranked since UCD I think is that because there's not that many universities University of Limerick's top 33% senior female professors no senior female staff it's a combination of senior lecturers and professors and UCD I think has about 30 31 so it's better it's interesting that they were foreign yeah there was I had a Canadian Russian and Indian I don't know I might have read it into it too much it was fascinating I think some students particularly in NYU never see a female professor and they won't even know it the students didn't really know they were taught by these women they're outstanding I mean several people joined the campaign simply because they named the different women and said she's been my most inspiring lecture I've ever had why come she's still at this level you know so it's not recognized but the students don't necessarily realize of course what the ranking and all of this and why you know a professor in Ireland obviously a professor is different than here yeah interesting who else? I was curious about women represented in elective offices in local elections what does that look like well I've been starting with the presidents we've had female presidents I know that's why I'm curious about the so much when it comes we've had now again and it seems to be a kind of theme is there are now gender quotas for people going for candidates because quite a bit of fuss because men are finding that they're being you know but we're kind of saying you know 50% actually and anyway they're only standing they're not pushing you out if you're better you'll get elected and if you're not then the woman will get in so you know that is as only gender quota 30% it's beginning to come in and in the local councils I wouldn't know of hand I know that the National Women's Council it's now 10 years ago produced a book of all the institutes all their semi-government things and it was stunning what I remember the one that stood out for me was Bored and the Gone which was the horse board and it was 100% male couple of those things were all male and they're still very very dominated by men but in terms of county council city council I think it's a bit better there's some you know fairly strong women involved in that but the extra percentage is I'm not sure I think it's better than the government or the Europe as the parliament I I was just curious what you believe the university's reluctance is and even after the suit not promoting the five I think it's because naming no names there are people who just are never wrong I think the previous president would have said right we messed up here this isn't great but you know what let's just promote the women and get rid of it but this man never backs down ever on anything you know and that's a real failing you know he just stonewalls the first thing he said to the five women and when they went in you know right after me winning it he says you don't deserve promotion you know oh yes I'm open to meeting the women and then the very first thing he says you don't deserve it you know so it's not and the main reason I think is not just his character which is you know I mean it's a strength in other ways you know it gets the higher rankings and all that it's focused on one particular objective but it's also that you know that was a corrupt round the where guys being bumped up who should not have been I was told later that there are lists of names and I don't know if it pertains to that round of promotions with FT written next to the names that's short for fast track I could well believe that these guys were being faster I suspect that they were being appointed at college because they couldn't be appointed at senior lectureship for financial reasons but they were promised promotion in the next round and that was at the expense of everybody else but they don't want that to come out so therefore the easiest way would have been to promote them but no we're right you're wrong you know I don't want to be personal but it is actually and he's got a bunch of cronies the Mr. Brown's boys who you know the way when you've got a position of power people all it's starting to fall because he's due to be placed in January apparently this people leaving the rats are leaving the sinking ship it's interesting the ship might bulk back again hope the new guy will manage to be a bit more humane I by the way I tickled me that I'm the president's distinguished speaker series here and I'm hoping that my president sees this in some form or other because I don't think I'll be his distinguished speaker ever and it's a real honor to be received here with courtesy and favor because yeah we'll tweet it to him any other questions hi I'm an aspiring political journalist and going into the realm of journalism and politics that are both very heavily male dominated I was wondering if you had any advice for sort of standing your ground in an extremely like male dominated world where they're going to want to silence your voice just keep talking it is hard and I mean you know like I say to people do something speak out say something but sometimes you have to decide is this going to lose me the job you know I have a funny feeling that one of the reasons I didn't get promoted was because I was a troublemaker and I don't even know why or what I have to admit that I was involved as many were in the campaign when Ronald Reagan came and got an honorary degree from our university in 1984 and a lot of us were against that and I was one of the people I mean it was one of many and other people got promoted I don't know but I have a feeling so you have to think about yourself but at the same time stand your ground and by God you're as good as those men better maybe in times and you've got to keep that in your mind and say I'm going to keep going but it is hard if people are not believing in you and if they are then you're fine but you know that's the hard thing is to just say right I'm as good it's not what I'm writing it's just because you know yourself you do gender blind trials of things and women do really well you know and get support join a union if that's I don't know in Ireland I always say to anybody writing if you're in a union you'll get a bit of support you'll get free legal advice you'll get people who've seen all this before get some support if you do find you're in difficulty about stuff anyone else let me ask one question that we came up at the master class where would Hannah be if she was here today 100 years later she'd be still campaigning for equality a suspect should be out there with me the gender thing and probably taking a wider view I have to admit that mine is it's nature-focused but you know looking at the wider picture I mean a bit like what you're saying in Northern Ireland I'm less politically involved and with the capital P I think she'd be looking at North South too and trying to get more reconciliation in Ireland and with women in the prominent role I mean I wanted to phone her when Mary Robinson got elected it was just such a turnaround for us as women generally unfortunately didn't go much beyond the presidency at the time but it was great all right well thank you very much let's give a round of applause