Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington c. 1920
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, suffragette, nationalist and feminist was born Johanna Mary Sheehy into a nationalist family in Kanturk, Cork on May 24th, 1877. She was educated in Dublin receiving both a batchelors and master''s degree at the Royal University of Ireland.
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In 1903 she married Frank Skeffington. The couple, both committed feminists, adopted the same hyphenated Sheehy-Skeffington surname as an expression of their equality. Together they founded the Irish Women's Franchise League (IWFL) which advocated for women's suffrage.
Hanna politics were leftist, deeply influenced by her observations of the 1913 Lockout hardships and James Connolly. Her primary passion though, focused on the standing of women and following the failure of the Irish Parliamentary Party to support women's suffrage, she and other members of the IWFL, broke windows in Irish government buildings. She was sentenced to a month in prison, and while there, went on hunger strike in protest of the treatment of some of her fellow suffragettes. Her femminist millitancy resulted in the loss of her post at Rathmines School of Commerce where she taught German.
Despite the strong nationalist tradition in her family of origin, Hanna, opted not to join Inghinidhe na hÉireann nor Cumman na mBan, finding both organizations overly subordinate to their male nationalist counterparts. Despite distancing herself from direct revolutionary activity, she would not escape that Irish revolutionary decade unscathed.
Tragically, Frank was murdered during the 1916 Rising. A committed pacifist, Frank was swept up by British patrol when he ventured onto Dublin's streets in attempt to curb looting during the rebellion week. He was taken to Portobello Barracks and was summarily executed without trial by John Colthurst Bowen-Colthurst. While the Irish born, Bowen-Colthurst may have been suffering from PTSD as a result of his service on the Western Front during WWI, many viewed his court-martial verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity as a coverup.
Devasted and outraged by her husband's murder, Hanna campaigned to raise awareness of her husband's death and in 1917 embarked on a coast to coast speaking tour of the United States where she critiqued the impact of British millitarism. She spoke at over 250 meetings in the ensuing 19 months and was commended for "poise and self-control" as she related her country's story.
With the implementation of the Anglo Irish Treaty establishing the Irish Free State, Hanna's politics hewed increasingly left and republican. She supported herself and son Owen throgh journalism, contributing to An Phoblacht. No doubt her visit to the Soviet Union in 1930 and her sympathies for communism would have been viewed with a deep skeptism in an increasingly conservative Ireland. Never scared of a fight, she opposed the 1937 Irish Constitution and actively campaigned against it's adoption. In 1943, she ran for a seat in the Dáil, but her campaign failed to impress.
In 1945, Hanna's health deteriorated and at age 69 died the following year on April 20th, 1946 from heart failue. She is burried alongside her husband and other family members in Glasnevin Cemetery
