My Granny – An Inspiration

Today March 8th marks International Women’s Day, to mark this significant date, Ógra Shinn Féin have commissioned a number of articles for the blog. Here is the first of a series that will appear throughout this week.

Eimear Ruane McAteer
South Down
Ógra Shinn Féin

My Grandmother, like many others, was a strong Republican woman who sacrificed everything for what she believed in.

When her three brothers were imprisoned her family was harassed systematically by the RUC. In the early 1940s, she was interned for three and a half years in Armagh Women’s Gaol and on one occasion put her ability to bear children on the line when she spent 19 days on hunger strike.

But undeterred she continued to be active in the Republican movement and met my Grandfather when visiting the Republican prisoners in Crumlin Road Gaol. They had three children however my Grandfather died in 1970, when the youngest, my father, was only 11 years old. My Grandmother was left to raise them and still managed to continue with her Republican work.

I am unable to imagine being in her shoes, as a child she had to deal with the never ending abuse by the British Government, watch her three brothers get arrested and do her very best to keep going, many people don’t suffer this much in a lifetime. Even when she was married her struggle continued.

The responsibility of doing right by her children while doing what she could for her country and dealing with the untimely death of her husband seems to be an impossible task. Yet she did it, and in the last few years of her life she could finally enjoy her eight grandchildren. Each one of us have different memories of our Grandmother and I am so grateful that my sister and I, being the youngest of the family, had the chance to know this amazing woman for a short time before her death in 1998.

I only knew my Grandmother for six years of my life but I will never forget how loving she was when it could have been so easy to be bitter and cold after the unfortunate events that made up her life.

After hearing so many stories about how difficult it was for women in the past, I find myself thinking how lucky we are today and how little we have to worry about.

However one in five Irish women has experienced sexual abuse and the same number has suffered from domestic violence. These horrific incidents are far too common to say we live in an equal society.

I found this quote by an anonymous person, “When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen.”

This attitude is too prevalent today, and is what needs changed. I believe that a woman’s image has got so important to society that other women are even feeding into it.

That is why International Women’s Day is so important, these issues need to be raised, women need to know that there is support for them because now more than ever, we as females are under intense pressure to be brilliant and liberated, we can work in any occupation, have as many children as we like or none, be openly lesbian and ultimately be in control of our own lives.

But it is impossible to do all this alone.