ILLUSTRATED TALK: Maud Gonne MacBride (1866-1953) – Modern Irishwomen series.

Margaret Ward on actress, suffragette and revolutionary Maude Gonne McBride, described by W. B. Yeats as possessing ‘beauty like a tightened bow’. Dr Margaret Ward is a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast and the author of numerous books, including Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Suffragette and Sinn Féiner.

1918 was a landmark year for women in Ireland and Britain, with legislation beginning the process of their inclusion in politics. Famously, in December 1918, Constance de Markievicz became the first women elected to the British House of Commons, only to abstain from taking her seat as a member of Sinn Féin. To mark the centenary of this pivotal year in women’s history, Galway City Museum is hosting a series of monthly lectures – curated by Dr James Curry and supported by the Moore Institute, NUI, Galway – on Markievicz and seven other ‘Modern Irishwomen’.