Clodagh Finn: An advent calendar of women to celebrate

Give us a drum-roll there, and let me introduce:

Amazonia and Achillia: Two female gladiators who, heavily armed and shielded, slugged it out in an arena in a scene captured in a second-century AD marble sculpture now in the British museum. Although female gladiators were rare, women did much to shape the ancient world, although you wouldn’t think it watching Gladiator II.

Ma Copley: As we are in fighting mode, recall Clara Copley who punched a hole in stereotypes by becoming a boxing promoter in 1930s Belfast. Known as Ma, because she gave so many young boxers a chance in the ring, she also expected a good show in the contests held at Chapel Fields, near St Malachy’s Church. Next time you’re in the city, check out the blue plaque commemorating her at 56 Donegall Pass.

Mary Herbert: The Dublin-born special agent and French Resistance member gave birth to a baby daughter in occupied France in early December 1943. When the Gestapo swept into her apartment the following February, she was taken away from her baby, arrested and held in solitary confinement for two months. Mary continued to deny any involvement in the Resistance, and was later released. She spent a very anxious few days before locating her baby at a convent orphanage.

Mary O’Connell: Another Mary, and another war. This Limerick-born woman (1814) was known as the “angel of the battlefield” during the American Civil War where she pioneered a new method of triage later credited with saving countless lives. After her family emigrated to America, she entered the Sisters of Charity in 1835 and, as Sister Anthony, tended the wounded from all sides at field hospital no. 14 in Nashville, Tennessee. She died on December 8, 1897 in Ohio.

Pan Collins: As the Toy Show gets underway, doff your cap to the woman who came up with the idea. When she pitched it to the then-host Gay Byrne, he wasn’t too keen. After some persuasion, a segment on toys was aired. It was so popular that the first full-length show went out the next year, in 1975.

Grizelda Steevens: You can bet your bottom-dollar that another story about an overspend at the Children’s Hospital will emerge before year end. If only Grizelda (1653-1746) were here. They might have taunted her and claimed she had the face of a pig — a common insult meted out to wealthy women at the time — but this singular philanthropist ensured that Madam Steevens, the first public hospital in the country, was built. It’s now the HSE headquarters near Heuston Station.

Gemma Hussey, Mary Banotti and Mary O’Rourke: Here’s are some numbers to ponder in the aftermath of yesterday’s General Election: Of the 1,345 people elected to Dáil Eireann to date, just 131 of them were women. This year, we lost Gemma Hussey (former Fine Gael minister), Mary Banotti (former Fine Gael MEP) and Mary O’Rourke (former Fianna Fáil minister), three of those early trailblazers who carved out a path for others. In this paper, columnist Terry Prone recalled a radio interview in which a new minister of state showed that she had no knowledge of Gemma Hussey’s role in politics, or in her fight for women’s rights.

At the time, Gemma graciously said: “It’s not an insult to have the struggle forgotten. It’s a triumph that this generation of women can take their rights for granted.”

I wonder if she’d say the same now.

Geraldine McInerney: Gemma Hussey was a member of the Women’s Political Association (WPA), an organisation founded in 1969 to encourage more women to run for election and increase women’s visibility in public life. One of the things they noted was the lack of female newsreaders at the national broadcaster, RTÉ. Another six years would elapse before Geraldine McInerney became the first woman to read the news on RTÉ in October 1975.

Speaking of firsts, the first female bus conductors in Ireland were employed by CIE in Cork in 1979. Geraldine Horgan, Angela Stout and Maura Wallace were employed under the same conditions as men — and wore the same uniforms. The following year, when Joan Doran became CIE’s first woman bus driver (and the first woman on a scheduled run since before WWII), she significantly altered the male uniform so that it was comfortable for a woman to wear.

Mavis Arnold: Another founding member of the WPA, Mavis was a women’s rights activist, a psychotherapist and an investigative journalist who, with fellow journalist Heather Laskey, exposed widespread abuse in church-run industrial schools. When her husband Bruce Arnold’s phone was famously tapped, she quipped that all anyone listening would hear was “earfuls of talk” about the women’s movement.

Second Dáil: As candidates are being elected today, recall the Irish women in the Dáil over the last century. Are you stuck after naming a certain Countess, the first — and only — woman elected in 1918? If you want to be inspired, revisit the women who were voted into the second Dáil (1921-1922) just after her. Four of them were related to recently deceased revolutionary leaders, but Kathleen Clarke (widow of Tom Clarke), Mary MacSwiney (sister of Terence MacSwiney), Kathleen O’Callaghan (widow of Michael O’Callaghan) and Margaret Pearse (mother of Patrick Pearse) were political powerhouses in their own right.

The only TD without a male political relative was Ada English, a doctor from Mullingar who deserves much more attention not only for her role in politics, but for her work in revolutionising mental health care in Ireland. Working in Ballinasloe asylum, she ensured mental health patients were treated more humanely, and she campaigned for reform of mental health legislation.

Mercedes Gleitze: If you’re thinking of dipping into the glacial sea as part of the annual Christmas Day swim, summon up the spirit of Mercedes, the first woman to swim the English Channel. 

She married into the Dublin Carey family in 1930 and attracted large crowds when she set two swimming endurance records at the Tara Street Baths in Dublin in February (28 hours) and November (42 hours) the same year.

Mary Lavin and Eavan Boland: It is pretty shocking that the inauguration of Mary Lavin Place in Dublin in October was the first time a public space was named after a female writer. It was a reason to celebrate, nonetheless, not least because it came shortly after Trinity College renamed its library after poet Eavan Boland. Here’s hoping those two happy events will prompt us to inscribe more women into the fabric of our towns and cities.

There’s a project for 2025.