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‘Rebel Girls’: Rosie Hackett and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
May 28, 2014 @ 8:30 pm
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‘Rebel Girls’: Rosie Hackett and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
On this Wednesday (28 May, 8.30), the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour & Class (ICHLC) presents two short talks in the Town Hall, Galway, under the title ‘Rebel Girls’: Rosie Hackett and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Speakers are James Curry (Moore Inst.) and Meredith Meagher (Univ. of Notre Dame). Tickets, ‰âÂ3 (‰âÂ2 concession).
A new bridge over the Liffey has just been named after Rosie Hackett (1892-1960), a working class woman associated with the early labour movement in Dublin. Hackett was certainly remarkable, an activist of the Irish Women Workers Union while still a teenager. Historian James Curry has thoroughly researched Hackett‰۪s life and he will give a full account of it.
The life of a contemporary of Hackett‰۪s, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1961) will be introduced by Meredith Meagher. Gurley Flynn, whose radical career in the American labour movement also began while she was still a teenager was born in Boston, the daughter of a Loughrea woman, Ann Gurley. At 17, she became a full-time organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World, and she remained a political and social activist for the rest of her life. She died while visiting the USSR, and was honoured there with a state funeral. Gurley Flynn took the title of her autobiography, Rebel Girl, from the title of a song written about her by her comrade, Joe Hill.
Contact:
John Cunningham (ICHLC)
School of Humanities (History)
NUI Galway