On this day 100 years ago: Votes for Women

Remembering Suffrage in 2018: An unfinished cause?

Professor Linda Connolly

Director Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute and author of ‘From Revolution to Devolution: the Irish Women’s Movement’

*this blog should be appropriately cited if used in other publications, public talks or in media work 

The Great Reform Act of 1832 restricted the parliamentary vote to “male persons.” Some 86 years later, the December 1918 general election was the first opportunity for women to exercise their democratic right to vote in parliamentary elections in Ireland.  Only 53.3% of the female population was included in the franchise as only women aged over 30 with property qualifications or in a university constituency could vote. Although limited by age, class and wealth, the securing of votes for women in 1918 was nonethelesssignificant and critical. Female suffrage has over time beenconsidered the high point of ‘first wave’ feminism, which is evident in the impressive Vótáil 100 State commemoration programme in 2018 www.oireachtas.ie/votail100/votail100. However, the long term antecedents of first wave feminism in Ireland also deserve due consideration at this time. Existing evidence of the activism of individual women and campaigns led by women in the nineteenth century dates to at least the 1830s. Significant achievements were made in the nineteenth century in areas such as, married women's control of their own property, education, employment and local government in this period.  In addition, the achievement of suffrage in 1918 was preceded by another suffrage campaign - the right of women to vote and run in district council elections was granted in 1898. Moreover, feminist activists were commonly protestant and unionist in sympathy in this period.  Mary Cullen and Maria Luddy have shown that although there is little evidence of a mass based women's movement, in nineteenth century activism was not just a question of a few isolated individuals.  "These women were, of course, from the middle and upper classes, the classes which generally involved themselves in women's issues" in the nineteenth century (Cullen and Luddy, 1995: 17).  Yet, quite a lot of the writing on the early decades of the twentieth century speaks as if Irish feminism did not exist until it emerged parallel to the broad nationalist renaissance in political, social, economic and cultural life at the end of the nineteenth century.  

In the early twentieth century, while protestant and unionist-inclined women still campaigned, catholic and nationalist women were of course becoming active in increasing numbers and the campaign for suffrage involved a wider coalition of women.  A more broad based women's social movement expanded from the turn of the twentieth century (involving prominent women leaders such as Constance Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Eva Goore Booth, Louie Bennett and Helen Chevenix), and a militant suffrage strand emerged.   Between 1912 and 1914 there were twenty-six convictions of suffragettes.  The militancy of a relatively small group of radical activists, over this short period, generated significant attention for the cause (the writings of Margaret Ward and Louise Ryan detail several aspects of the women’s movement in this period).

First wave feminism was often divided (not unified) by the national question, firstly between unionists and nationalists, and secondly on whether the vote for women or the national cause took precedence. Nationalism is, of course, an integral dynamic in the historical development of the Irish women's movement.  Yet, the women's movement is unique in that a range of political and social questions are inextricably interwoven in its agenda. Conflict between nationalist and suffrage women from 1912 until 1920 has been widely considered a pivotal dynamic of first wave feminism. In general, nationalists opposed the idea of campaigning for a vote for the British parliament - the issue of Irish independence must come first.  Nationalist-feminists became increasingly involved in the overall struggle for suffrage after the 1916 Rising, however.  More research needs to be conducted on unionist suffragism in this period. Little is known about the lack of conversion of unionist feminists to nationalism in this period with more emphasis to date on Protestant women who fervently adopted nationalism (such as the Gifford sisters).  

The rich history of socialist-feminism and women engaged in philanthropy and poor relief from the nineteenth century is also important. Apart from suffrage and unionist-nationalist relations, the writings of first wave feminists demonstrate widespread activism on issues to do with class, trade unionism, morality, sexual abuse and the law in the nineteenth and indeed in the early decades of the twentieth century.  Campaigns around questions of immediate interest to women, children and the poor came to the fore, for example, when Maud Gonne and Inghinidhe na hƒireann, and the women around Connolly, devoted much of their energies to raising money to feed the children of the urban poor. 

In 1918 British and Irish women over the age of thirty were granted the right to vote and stand for election to parliament.  Constance Markievicz, who was elected, and Winifred Carney were the only female candidates in the election.  In the new State, it became quickly apparent that the right of women to vote per se did not radically change the position of women in Ireland.  The collective vote of women did not become a force for political pressure and change, nor did women become elected representatives in large numbers.  Indeed, the number of women elected as public representatives has remained comparatively low on a consistent basis, right up to the present day.  The intense campaign for suffrage had been important symbolically, however, in that as a campaign it unified a concerted (although ideologically different) network of feminist activists that were to sustain in future decades.  By 1920, it was clear that the remnants of this network would maintain a high degree of continuity and co-operation in the Free State (see my 2003 book and Caitríona Beaumont’s work for a fuller discussion).  The women's movement remained active in the early years of the independent State, working primarily outside of the new political establishment regardless of the granting of suffrage.  

Achieving the vote in 1918, and full adult suffrage in 1922, is widely considered the last  piece of progressive legislation affecting women for many years. The fact that successive governments of the Irish Free State introduced direct legislation in the 1920s and 1930s that reinforced several restrictions on the rights of women in the arena of employment, participation on juries and reproduction is palpable.  The 1937 Constitution can be viewed as the culmination of the State imposing a consistent patriarchal agenda in the decades following independence.  The culture engendered by State leaders in this era impeded the participation of women in party politics and in Government. And women who subverted the received definition of family and sexuality that was premised on marriage and motherhood were routinely institutionalised or exiled. Although women's groups were active throughout the twentieth century, it was not until the 1970s that a powerful women's movement began to successfully disrupt this trend in key domains. Votes for women in 1918 was a significant achievement in a patriarchal society that restricted women’s rights and freedoms in so many other ways. But as feminists themselves recognized at the time – suffrage was just one important step in a much wider cause that would require, and indeed still requires, several more years of activism and fortitude.   

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#OnThisDay - 100 years ago the 'Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918' allowed the following  "A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons House of Parliament." 

#Vótáil100 www.oireachtas.ie/votail100/votail100