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AS IRELAND MARKS the centenary of the first national female vote in 1918, an exhibition on how print media was used as part of the suffragist campaign is on show at the National Print Museum.
The exhibition – Print, Protest, and The Polls: The Irish women’s suffrage campaign and the power of print media, 1908-1918 – tells the story of women’s fight for their right to vote in Ireland.
Curator of the exhibition Donna Gilligan said that “we now have the opportunity to reassess this important period of female political reform, and to recognise its deserved place within Irish history”.
Print material, postcards, photographs, posters and newspaper publications are being displayed, some which have never before been exhibited publicly.
The material comes from Irish suffragists as well as their opponents, as both sides battled out their differences often through the use of print media.
Sometimes, suffragists were represented in cartoons, postcards and illustrations as masculine, unstable and dangerous.
Some postcards are being displayed showing how these women were mocked and criticised being depicted as ugly, unfashionable spinsters.
Irish artists like Grace Gifford and Rosamund Praeger produced cartoons which turned the tables on the critics who mocked their cause.
Curator Donna Gilligan is material culture historian who began research into the area of objects and images from the Irish suffrage campaign three years ago.
‘Ridiculed and feared’
Donna told TheJournal.ie that “in general quite a large part of the story of female involvement in Irish history is still only coming to the fore”.
She added that the women involved in the movement were “ridiculed and feared for their attempts to enter the male political sphere”.
They were also criticised as being anti-nationalist for fighting to vote in a British government at the time, as well as for their association with the unpopular British suffragette movement.
Suffragettes were often viewed as wild, violent and unwomanly by their critics and there were fears around future uncertainty if women were given the right to vote.
Suffragettes were women who participated in militant activity such as window breaking, while suffragists made up the non-militant part of the campaign.
Ireland had a large number of both who engaged in active protest, mass rallies and performed public lectures.
Irish Citizen
In 1912, a group of suffragists associated with the Irish Women’s Franchise League, a suffragette group established in 1908, founded the Irish Citizen newspaper, which used writing as a form of political activism.
This publication sought to further the suffragist cause as well as strengthen the voices of those in the labour movement particularly around the rights of women workers.
Women from across the country were invited to express their opinions in an attempt to unite Irish women as well as alert people to suffrage events like meetings, protests and lectures.
The exhibition will run until 30 September and admission is free. A full education programme will accompany the exhibition throughout the summer.
The pieces on display in this exhibition are just a small sample of printed material which would have been produced and circulated during this period of the Irish suffrage campaign.
The objects and images in the exhibition come from private family collections, the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives, UCC Special Collections, DCC Library and Archives and the Museum of London, among others.
With reporting from Aoife Barry.
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jail time should be immposed on people who treat living animals this way. normally they are fined and banned from having animals which is like a slap on the wrist.
Absolutely Jail Time.
I vote for kick the head off them time too.
Removal of state welfare and benefits would be no harm either
Our justice system doesn’t only let us down.
Ask ur TD for Regulation and Enforcement. Election coming…. (makes my blood boil this)
I rescued a kitty dumped in a bog (longford)-completly emaciated. Tried to save her but had to take her to the vet and put to sleep as he did tests and she had an incurable virus having been exposed to the elements dumped in a bog. Can the Govt please put in place a US Style ANIMAL POLICE now!! Or we’ll be reading about this again..and again.
Wasn’t me boss !!
Boss?…….pikeman, it was more likely some tracksuit wearing dossing scrote from Ballyfermot.
Decent folk from Ballyfermot Al Ca !! ok Boss
Because no Wexford PikeyMen have ever mistreated an animal as such!
Disgraceful. How can any human do this to an animal
It’s their “culture”. Along with general lawlessness, intimidation and entitlements, to name a few.
so your point is Ned Shaw, is you believe them to be travellers
If you know of the area Eddie, you’d have no doubt.
Greyhounds have their ears tattooed and are regularly found with there ears hacked off and two horse were found last week with there legs bound by ratchet straps they had been disembowelled and had had their necks skinned in an attempt to remove the now legally required microchips!! And while travellers aren’t responsible for all animal abuse in ireland you just have to look at all the pieballed ponies and lurcher type dogs found in disgraceful conditions in every rescuce,pound and shelter up snd down the country to see that yet again the traveller community is responsible for more than their fair share and again they are not being held accountable nor are they making any attempt to change their behaviour!!
The missus and I rescued a lurcher saluki last year. The rescue centre told us the dog had broken its leg and was left on the haulting site to die as she couldnt move. No food or water anywhere to be seen. The rescue centre took the dog and paid to repair the broken bone. The work these centres do is amazing across the country. The dog is now happy and healthy and enjoys watching tv with me every evening.
Ah I’ve a rescue sulaki x lurcher too!! Beautiful, sofa hogging,daft dogs! Glad yours is doing well :0)
Absolute disgusting Fû(ktards the lowest of low Clunt ever.
It’s like bandit country in parts of West Dublin these days. You’ll see young lads flying up and down footpaths on scramblers.. You’ll also see young lads on horses and pony’s on the roads, on green spaces and around the canal and not a thing is being done about it.. It goes to show what cutbacks in policing have done to the local community
Nothing has EVER been done about cream crackers in these areas. Wouldn’t happen in D4 though.
Drive by Donnybrook when the Wesley disco is on, you’ll see four or five guards walking around the general area making sure there’s no messing going on. Meanwhile there’s Garda Stations closing down in other parts of the Country because we don’t have enough Guards..
Exactly!
Just like with cattle there should be a tagging scheme that each horse when born (like cattle) gets tagged within a couple of days of birth this should then be filled onto a animal register. When registered the vet should then come and chip the horse see that the register is filled in properly with just like the bovine side of things including movement of the animals this should be documented legitimately to adhere with standards that D.A.F.F should enforce.!?
All horses and ponies by law must be chipped and have a passport . I would bet that this pony has neither .
Has this something to do with our culture, boss?
Piebalds!
Every person who owns a horse and particularly uses it on the public road should have it chipped and have current insurance, otherwise it get seized just like a car!…its reasonably easy,
Animals left in public parks should removed and sold. If people can’t afford to look after them, they shouldn’t be allowed keep them. If a child Kherson hurt by an animal in public parks who’s responsible.
It should be illegal to have a horse in an urban area, full stop. Although, if they just enforced the existing regulations on chipping and passports for horses, I’m sure they could easily seize most of the horses kept in halting sites
Tesco will take them all day long…
At least it’s a better fate than to be left starving in a ditch
When is this government going to crack down on idiots buying horses , then not able look after them , only registered stable owners and horse trainers should be allowed buy horses
Presumably it was a couple of these little b******s who left the poor animal to die, you know the ones who gallop through the streets and no one gives a damn!
Yes Craig , I call them knackers , socks pulled up over tracksuit bottom , vermin of our society
Absolutely heartbreaking story, when will this cruelty stop?
Pity the person who saw the pony being walked down the canal hadn’t the awareness to take a photo of the perpetrator of this crime.
As if that would make any difference. Which ireland do you inhabit?
It’s not that secluded, it was right along the canal. There was a concerned guy on the phone as we walked across the way from it. Poor animal.
In order to own cattle you must prove you have a proper premises before you can get a herd number to purchase an animal. You must notify every time the animal leaves the premises and tag any animal born on that premises. If you sell an animal you must notify the sale and provide the name address and herd number of the new owner. This is inspected and enforced by the Dept of Ag. If you are found in breech of these regulations heavy penalties apply. Why is this not applied to the equine and canine industries??
Lousy bast@rds should get 6 months in the slammer for this, minimum
Until the authorities get brave and ‘go in’ and round up these ‘horse lovers’ and ban them from ownership it will never get sorted. Food, shelter, secure grazing (that YOU own), and regular observation is essential.
Ownership need not be essential, but the rest yes, I agree. It is already a requirement to register land where equines are kept.
Animal cruelty unfortunately is never seen as an election issue. It is members of all communities who mistreat animals. Tougher sentencing and very heavy fines are needed.
Dislike my comment if you like but anyone who does such an evil act like this needs to die. They have no place on this earth wasting precious oxygen. If I got a pardon for doing it myself I certainly would in a heartbeat. I’d have no regrets that subhumans capable of such an act is no longer breathing.
I hope they get hit by a bus and die in agony. Absolute lowlifes. Serial killers in the making.
Animals are better than most people.
As long as we are happy to let scobies have horses in housing estates because … sure it gives them something to do … then this is what we will continue to see.
People who can’t look after animals should never own an animal again.
Our animal welfare laws are shameful to say the least. A cruelty story every single day to the point we will become desensitised to this suffering. I just couldn’t be around someone who’d harm an animal. It’s the lowest of the low. We should be ashamed.
Hedge hoppers at their finest as usual.. but sure it’s their culture so we can’t say anything can we?
This just makes me really sad
T.ramps
I cannot understand this, a horse will eat an acre of grass or, it will eat a half acre of grass (as my Daddí say’s) and there’s plenty of grass along the canal so, maybe there’s something else wrong with the pony.
Hope it recovers well, just came from feeding my own.
It wouldn’t have been kept on grass, probably a tiny muddy enclosure and left to starve, until on the point of death they walked/dragged the pony along the canal to dump it where it wouldn’t be traced back to them.
This time of the year the grass doesn’t provide nourishment and additional food is required, would of thought someone who has their own horses would know this
Hi Carmel, take a dander along the canal, there’s plenty of grass around Labre Park, probably where the gaunch who owns this wee pony hails from but, as above, I suspect there’s more to this.
have your say