Writer Sarah Webb on the achievements of our unsung heroines
Frustrated that women were being written out of history, Sarah Webb decided to do something about it
Hands up who remembers
Soundings, the Leaving Cert poetry book? Originally published in 1969 and republished in 2010 with a foreword by Joseph O’Connor, it was responsible for introducing me to the poetry of Emily Dickinson. O’Connor says: “Soundings was the book that brought poetry into hundreds of thousands of lives.” He’s right, it did. However, the book had one major flaw: there were 22 men in it and only one woman.
When I questioned this as a teenager, I was told that women weren’t writing at the time. My History of Art school text book was the same — there were so few women on the pages. Again, I was told women weren’t active in the art world in the past. But this simply wasn’t true! There have always been accomplished women out there, but their stories were not in the history books.
I wish I’d read about Wexford woman Eileen Gray as a teenager, who was responsible for the first Modernist building designed by a female architect, or Dubliner Mainie Jellett who organised the first modern art exhibition in Ireland, or Dame Ninette de Valois from Wicklow who set up the Royal Ballet and discovered and trained Margot Fonteyn. Every month, I visit primary schools and talk to the students about creativity. In one school, we got talking about President Michael D Higgins and his poetry. “Of course, our ex-President Mary Robinson was a poet in her own way,” I told them, “and still has a great love for the arts”. They looked at me blankly. They had no idea who Mary Robinson was.
So I decided to write a book for Irish children, a book featuring our own female heroes and pioneers, from Granuaile to yes, President Mary Robinson. And that’s how my new book Blazing A Trail was born. There were so many women worthy of inclusion that I’d have to have some criteria. I decided they had to be outstanding in their field and they also had to encourage and support other women along the way.
I watched videos and documentaries. I watched the clip of President Robinson on RTE’s children’s show, The Den, talking with Dustin the Turkey, Zig and Zag and Ray D’Arcy. I studied dozens of clips of Sonia O’Sullivan running, listened to radio interviews with astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, and voice recordings of Countess Markievicz.
I also spoke to experts in their fields such as sports journalists Mary Hannigan and Lindie Naughton. Lindie suggested including legendary athlete and hockey player Maeve Kyle from Kilkenny, the first woman to represent Ireland in the Olympics in 1956. At the time, people were outraged. They said running was ‘unladylike’, Maeve was shouted at in the streets and things were thrown at her when she was out running. But she refused to let it stop her and went on to win over 30 medals in international championships and set new world records.
Mary Hannigan suggested Anne O’Brien. Anne grew up in Inchicore in Dublin and loved football from an early age. At 17, she was spotted by a French football coach and she was the first woman from Ireland or Britain to be signed to a professional European team. She played professional football for 18 years, many for Lazio in Rome where she won 11 league titles.
Irish women made an impact all the over world, from labour organiser Mother Jones in America, to Dr James Barry, aka Margaret Bulkley, one of the first women in the world to study medicine in the early 1800s. How did she do this? She disguised herself as a man, went to Edinburgh University and, after qualifying, ended up as a surgeon in the British Army.
I spent two years walking in the shoes of some of the most remarkable women I’ve ever encountered, women who refused to take no for an answer, who fought hard for what they believed in. It unleashed a sense of possibility in me, a feeling that I can do anything if I set my mind to it and they will remain with me for the rest of my life.
I was told women weren’t active in the art world in the past, but this simply wasn’t true
Blazing A Trail: Irish Women Who Changed The World by Sarah Webb, illustrated by Lauren O’Neill, is published by O’Brien Press.