Press Release

Guns & Chiffon - Women Revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol 1916 - 1923

Wednesday, 13th December 2006

A unique exhibition looking at the role played by women revolutionaries in Irish history in the early 1900s will be on display in the Tower Museum from this week.

The exhibition, entitled “Guns and Chiffon”, looks at the role of women in the struggle for Irish freedom.

Sinead McCoole, who researched material for the exhibition explained that the title of ‘Guns and Chiffon’ is a quote from the first nationalist newspaper for Irish Women, Beann nahEireann (Women of Ireland), which ran between 1908 and 1911. The editor, Helena Molony, described it as a ‘mixture of guns and chiffon’, hinting at its blend of traditional women’s issues and political radicalism.

Ms McCoole further explained that contemporaries saw the involvement of women in revolutionary politics as irreconcilable with feminine aspects of their personalities and their roles as wives, mothers and sweethearts. Indeed, women’s involvement in any form of political activity was regarded as an unworthy form of behaviour, she said.

“The women involved in the struggle for Irish political independence 1900-1923 were part of a long tradition of Irish patriotism. They were willing to give their lives for their ideals and suffer long periods of incarceration for the beliefs. However, history has not remembered them in the same way as their patriotic brothers. In fact, until very recently they have been virtually ignored.”

The exhibition was opened initially on 21st May 1997 at Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, by the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson and has travelled extensively both in Ireland and abroad to the USA.

Roisin Doherty, Head of Heritage and Museum Service has said that this exhibition contains personal items of the women who were imprisoned within Kilmainham Gaol such as diaries, autograph books, letters and photographs. ‘It is an exhibition which articulates beautifully the role of women in this period of history’.

The exhibition will be open to the public from Friday 15th December until 28th February 2007.

Notes to Editor:

Photo Opportunity:

The Mayor Cllr Helen Quigley and Sinead McCoole, Keeper/Curator of The Jackie Clarke Archive, Ballina Co. Mayo will officially open the exhibition.
Venue: The Tower Museum
Time: 12.30 pm
Date: Friday 15th December

Sinead McCoole is an Irish historian, author, broadcaster, scriptwriter, and historical picture researcher and exhibition curator. She has worked as an exhibition researcher and curator for the Irish Government Heritage Service/Office of Public Works on the award winning permanent exhibition Kilmainham Gaol 1993-1996; Object Lessons (2001); Robert Emmet Bicentenary Exhibition (2003); for Gilroy McMahon Architects on the National Museum at Collins Barracks (1995-1996); and for the Trustees of Muckross House in Killarney, Co. Kerry (1998-2004). She is currently researching and working on a book on the widows of the men executed in the 1916 Rising.

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