Clodagh Finn: The secret lives of our revolutionary grannies

The first of many.

When the Professor of Social History at London South Bank University was asked to speak at a symposium at University College Dublin (UCD) to mark the centenary of the February Cumann na mBan 1922 convention, she discovered that her own grandmother had spoken at it.

Could Máirín McGavock, as she was at the time, ever have imagined that her impassioned speech in 1922 would be rediscovered by her granddaughter one hundred years later? By then, Máirín had joined the executive of Cumann na mBan and spoke vehemently against the Anglo-Irish treaty of the previous year.

While she acknowledged the treaty would bring a pause in fighting, she said “we should not get any breathing space if it means going into the British empire… If we accept this treaty we will never get a republic.”

Her granddaughter was incredulous: “Reading these words it suddenly dawned on me that my own grandmother was one of the anti-treaty women branded as ‘furies’, ‘die-hards’ and ‘avid begetters of violence’ by politicians, the Catholic clergy and the press in the wake of the Irish civil war.”

In the nascent Irish State, an idealised version of womanhood as the gentle, caring wife and mother had already started to take hold, effectively demonising the female activists of the recent past.

And Caitríona Beaumont was about to learn a lot more about her grandmother’s activism. She discovered that Máirín had given a witness statement to the Irish Bureau of Military History in 1950. In it, she said she had stored two violin cases containing ammunition and revolvers for the Irish Volunteers when she was a student living at Dominican Hall, Dublin, in 1915,

“We kept them in our room in the hostel for some time … and they were called for just before we went home for our Easter holidays, 1916,” she wrote.

“To me this description of my grandmother storing arms was reminiscent of a scene from a classic Hollywood gangster movie – not something I ever imagined my maimeó to be doing,” Prof Beaumont wrote in an article in The Conversation, a not-for-profit publisher of research-based analysis.

The statement also described how Máirín had fundraised for the families of those imprisoned for their role in the Easter Rising. Like many other members of Cumann na mBan, she had trained in first aid and basic nursing skills and described working long night shifts to help the Red Cross when “the bad flu” [the pandemic of 1918] raged so violently… naturally, there was no political distinction as regards the people we nursed”.

First aid and nursing were regular Cumann na mBan activities, but so too was drilling in military marches and manoeuvres. It’s not known if Máirín ever used the rifle in the photograph. Or indeed the fishing rod.

The list of questions on a 1922 Cumann na mBan application form gives a fascinating insight into the kind of skills favoured by the organisation.

 The form asked women if they could cook and sew, but also if they knew Morse code, were able to clean and load a firearm, ride a horse (astride or side-saddle) and if they could repair a “motor” and bicycle. The ability to fish would not be out of place on it.

There might still be some unanswered questions, but it is very clear that Máirín was deeply involved in republican politics in the 1920s. The discovery of another family photograph offers yet further proof. It shows her at the wedding of prominent republicans Tom Barry and Leslie Price at Vaughan’s Hotel in Dublin. Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins were also among the guests.

“The wedding photograph,” says Prof Beaumont, “is a who’s who of Irish political life and my grandmother is sitting on the far left of the picture”.

Activist women might have been dismissed in the new Irish state, but they went on to contribute to it in many different ways. In fact, it was Máirín Beaumont’s later life that first came to her granddaughter’s attention.

In 1988, while studying for an MA at UCD, she spotted her grandmother in a photograph of past presidents of the Women Graduates’ Association. She served as president from 1951-52. Máirín Beaumont was also deeply involved in the Irish Countrywomen’s Association.

The jigsaw pieces in the fascinating story of Maimeó, the lady with the seemingly bottomless supply of sweets, were finally falling into place.

How many other activist maimeós are hiding in plain sight, frozen in the grainy sepia of photographs in attics around the country? Professor Beaumont’s personal experience prompted her to try to find answers to that question by setting up a new history project, Afterlives of Activist Women.

She speaks about it on a riveting History Hub podcast, Afterlives: Grannies, Guns, and Archives along with historians Dr Mary McAuliffe and Dr Fionnuala Walsh, of UCD, who also celebrate the unacknowledged women in their own families.

It also offers practical tips on how you too can discover the secret lives of the women we often dismissed as sweet old ladies, or perhaps even grumpy ones, who were rarely encouraged to speak of their earlier lives.

Yet again, it’s clear that the women we saw solely as wives, mothers, aunts or grandmothers played a key role in shaping the Ireland of today.

As Prof Beaumont sums up so poignantly in The Conversation article: “The young woman smiling out at me from that old photograph, fully committed to the fight for an independent Ireland, survived the turmoil of the revolutionary period.

“She went on to make her mark in the new Irish state through her role as a housewife, teacher, activist and promoter of the Irish language. She did this despite being on the ‘losing side’ and maintaining her life-long objection to the Anglo-Irish treaty.”

The Decade of Centenaries has been about making space for all the stories of the Irish revolution, Prof Beaumont says. It might be drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean we should stop unearthing the stories of all the women in those dog-eared photos, including the ones branded furies and die-hards. Professor Caitríona Beaumont will speak at the West Cork History Festival which runs from 11-13 August at Inish Beg estate between Skibbereen and Baltimore. Her sister, and granddaughter of the inimitable Máirín, Helen Beaumont, Education & Outreach Officer at the National Museum of Ireland will also take part.

westcorkhistoryfestival.org