Nick Maxwell 
Úna Byrne’s Mission to Clean Up the Irish Housewives Association In 1961, the Irish Housewives Association (IHA) hosted the Congress of the International Alliance of Women at the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology – an institute founded by Archbishop McQuaid to promote Catholic social teaching. Mary Cullen’s article “Women, Emancipation and Politics from 1800-1984” posited … Read more
The Irish Housewives Association had dealt with some serious political accusations in the early ’50s. Though founded as a political pressure group to represent the needs of married Irish women, on 12 April 1952 the Roscommon Herald suggested that the IHA had ‘always been used as a medium of expression by Marxists and Communists’. Though … Read more
The centenaries of the third Home Rule bill and the outbreak of the First World War have sparked debate on how Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond was allegedly wiped from the historical memory of independent Ireland. In fact, the early 1920s saw major national tributes paid to Redmond, with thousands of old supporters in … Read more
John Redmond was the third Redmond to win a seat at Westminster, after his great-uncle and father, and was MP for Wexford constituencies (1881–91) and Waterford (1891–1918). Local loyalty to the former leader and his family continued to be a feature of political and even social life in Waterford after his death. Redmond’s son, Captain … Read more
The commencement of similar commemorations for John Redmond’s brother, Major Willie Redmond, in Ennis in June 1924 further highlighted a resurfacing of Redmondite loyalties. Although not as big an event as the Wexford anniversaries, the 1924 Willie Redmond event feat-ured contingents in the procession from across Munster as well as from Wexford, Dublin and Galway, … Read more