Álanna Campbell
Coney Kilpatrick
Cumann
Óige
Phoblachtach East Tyrone
Today is International Women’s Day, and an
important day typically where we, as republicans, reflect on women’s role in our
struggle, and celebrate the many strong females we have today, who are a major
part of our movement and advance it every step of the way.
However, I do not feel that a token day is
enough to remember the dedication and life commitment that these women gave, rather
we should remember with pride the women who contributed to the cause of Irish
freedom and unity every day and strive to keep their memory alive and to
continue what they dedicated their lives to; a 32 county socialist republic.
Women have played numerous, important roles
throughout Irish history and politics, each as important as the next, and women
continue to be a driving force behind our movement. We have had strong female
leaders who committed themselves to the re-unification of Ireland such as
Countess Markievicz and Mairéad Farrell, women in Armagh Gaol who participated
in no wash protests and the 1980 Hunger Strike, along with the male prisoners
of war in Long Kesh at the time, and the famous images of women banging the
ground with bin lids depicts how the women in the Falls area of Belfast courageously
warned their neighbours that the Brits were coming whilst the area was on
curfew in July 1970.
Women passed messages in and out of the
jail between the republican prisoners and the outside world, they provided safe
houses for those on the run and continued to maintain a sense of normality and
carry on with everyday life within their families, often becoming single
parents and juggling the many different roles such as wife, mother, daughter,
sister, soldier, freedom fighter, prisoner of war and so on.
Indeed women have always been instrumental
in the fight for Irish Freedom and continue to fight for that justice today. In
the many different twists and turns our struggle has taken, women have been to
the forefront of this; whether it was joining Cumman na mBan and bravely giving
up their lives for their country up until the Good Friday Agreement in April
1998, or now fighting our struggle in the assembly in Stormont and being active
in their communities promoting the necessity for a united, socialist Ireland.
Women are still not equally represented in
politics and are very much a minority in the typically and traditionally
patriarchal, male dominated sphere and although the role and importance of
women’s contribution to our history has been overlooked in the past, I believe
in this progressive age, and in the progressive nature of Sinn Féin as a party
and the dedication and the enlightened and revolutionary views of our youth
movement, Sinn Féin Óige Phoblachtach, that the future of women in politics and
in our movement is bright. Women will continue to play an active role in
politics, in the shaping of our country and their actions and contributions
will be recognised, and celebrated eternally, and not just on one day a year.
In the words of Mairead Farrell:
"I'm oppressed as a woman, but I am
also oppressed because I'm Irish. Everyone in this country is oppressed and we
can't successfully end our oppression as women until we first end the
oppression of our country. But I don't think that's the end of it. It happened
before where women took the back seat. But women today have gone through too
much, no way will they allow that to happen.”
