page_title: Feminism in the Republic of Ireland
section_title: 1910-1920s: Revolution & Suffrage
hierarchical_section_title: Feminism in the Republic of Ireland / 20th Century / 1910-1920s: Revolution & Suffrage
caption_attribution_description: English: Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington in 1916
context_page_description: Feminism in Ireland has played a major role in shaping the legal and social position of women in present-day Ireland. The role of women has been influenced by numerous legal changes in the second part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s.
context_section_description: Women participated actively in the Easter Rising of 1916, the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798 and the first armed action of the Irish revolutionary period. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, a voting rights activist, told audiences during a speaking tour in 1917 that "it is the only instance I know of in history when men fighting for freedom voluntarily included women.
  Approximately 300 women took part in the subsequent Irish War of Independence, many of whom were members of the Irish republican paramilitary group Cumann na mBan. In advance of the 2016 commemoration of the Rising, several historians worked to raise awareness of women's roles. Mary McAuliffe and Liz Gillis' We Were There – 77 Women of the Easter Rising documents the stories of 77 women who were jailed for participating in the uprising. They were typically activists who had fought for social justice and equality in a variety of ways: land reform, labor organizing and women’s suffrage. 
  From 1918, with the rest of the United Kingdom, women in Ireland could vote at age 30 with property qualifications or in university constituencies, while men could vote at age 21 with no qualification. From separation in 1922, the Irish Free State gave equal voting rights to men and women. [“All citizens of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) without distinction of sex, who have reached the age of twenty-one years and who comply with the provisions of the prevailing electoral laws, shall have the right to vote for members of Dáil Eireann, and to take part in the Referendum and Initiative.”] Promises of equal rights from the Proclamation were embraced in the Constitution in 1922, the year Irish women achieved full voting rights.
caption: Hanna Sheehy Skeffington in 1916
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