Time to remember?

"My prison experience is etched across my brain never to be effaced."

- Polly Cosgrave, North Dublin Union, July 1923

As time passes, pieces of history fade into the background of our minds, events that played fundamental roles in the evolution of countries fade into obscurity. People who played imperative roles in the past are forgotten.

Sadly, in this country the legacies left behind by courageous revolutionaries are often forgotten, in particular, our female revolutionaries. We are all familiar with the high-profile women Countess Markeviciez, Dr Lynn, etc, who have rightly graced the pages of many history books, but beneath the surface of Irish womanhood lie amazing legacies, heroic women, and heartbreaking stories, legacies buried deep in time going beyond a point where anyone remembers.

Women played a pivotal role in the struggle for Irish freedom breaking the barriers of their eras to fight for liberty. However their stories remain buried in history, the sacrifices they made branded irrelevant.

Kilmainham Jail and North Dublin Union are cornerstones in the legacy of torture and hardship that Irish women have faced while held in captivity.

Between February and November 1923, over 300 Irishwomen were incarcerated in Kilmainham Jail. Some were as young as 12; some as old as 70. Escape tunnels, torture, protests and hunger strikes were part of everyday life.

When Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin in 1905, he welcomed women. Sinn Féin offered liberation for Irish women. It broke the equality barriers of an era when women were thought of as fragile creature that needed to be told what to do. Sinn Féin offered equality and escape from the constraints of the British establishment, which pulled at the heart of Roisín Dubh.

Republican women, when not incarcerated, were shunned by society, branded unladylike and discreditable. They were jeered at in the streets, rejected by society.

Many of the women who played an active role in the Irish struggle simply faded into the background of society; they didn't shout and glorify their sacrifices. What they had done was natural to them; they simply followed their hearts to the Republic. Many died without those nearest to them knowing the bravery and sacrifices they had made for their country.

I could write endlessly about the hundreds of republican women who inspire me as a republican. They symbolise the unquenchable thirst for freedom for which we all long. They sacrificed, suffered and endured the unbearable so we might know freedom, yet their sacrifices remain buried in time.

We as republicans have a responsibility to ensure the past is not forgotten; we must embrace and celebrate it. We owe it to ourselves, the past and the future generations.

Remembering these legacies is one of the greatest gifts we can bestow upon future republican revolutionaries.

A nation without a past is a nation without a future.

"All that I ask is that you remember me,

And if remembrance proves a task

Forget."

Nora O'Sullivan

{republican prisoner 1923}

Sadly, it seems we have forgotten.

BY MICHELLE BOYLE,

Cumann Neil Plunkett O'Boyle, Donegal