Rocking the System: Fearless and Amazing Irish Women who Made History

by Siobhán Parkinson

Overview

Twenty illustrated essays on Irish women, historical and contemporary, who have defied cultural norms around femininity and achieved great things. The subjects include Irish women from Queen Medb to Eileen Gray, from Constance Markievicz to Sonia O’Sullivan, covering stateswomen, artists, writers, activists and rebels of all kinds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912417438
Publisher:	Little Island Books
Publication date:	12/07/2017
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	0.23(w) x 0.36(h) x 0.03(d)
Age Range:	11 - 14 Years

About the Author

Bren Luke was born and raised in Victoria, Australia. He studied Fine Art at Ballarat University, majoring in painting and printmaking and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. For the past decade or so, Bren’s work has been focused on traditional drawing techniques primarily using pen and ink. Siobhán Parkinson has been writing for children since the early ‘90s and has published more than thirty books. She has won numerous awards and her books have been translated into multiple languages. She currently works as the publisher at Little Island Books. She was Ireland’s first Children’s Laureate.

Read an Excerpt

There is an old saying that goes: ‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ This is supposed to mean that women have all the power. (Yeah, right!) When Mary Robinson won the presidential election in 1990 and became Ireland’s first female president, she said that the women of Ireland, in voting for a woman with her kinds of views, had, instead of rocking the cradle, ‘rocked the system’. That is of course where we got the title for this book, which celebrates how Irish women have made a difference to Irish life over the years – and, in many cases, the centuries.

The Irish people voted for a woman to be President of Ireland in the last decade of the 20th century, but in the first decade of that century, having a woman in that kind of position would have been unthinkable. Women could not even vote at that time, not to mind become president. It is only because women like Countess Markievicz and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington fought so hard for it (along with suffragettes in Britain) that women got the vote in 1918. That was an important landmark in Irish women’s history, but the struggle for women’s rights is still going on in modern Ireland.

Not all the women discussed in this book would think of themselves as feminists. But all of them, from Queen Medhbh, who led an army into battle, to Lady Gregory, who co-founded the Abbey Theatre, to Mainie Jellett, who introduced Ireland to Modernist art, to Sonia O’Sullivan, who is a record-breaking athlete, have done amazing things in their fields, and shown that women, like other humans, can achieve wonderful things. But very often they achieve these things in spite of the way the world is designed – mostly by and certainly for non-women.

There are politicians and artists, warriors and campaigners, creators and do-ers, rockers of cradles and non-mothers too in this book. All of them had to struggle, in one way or another, to achieve what they have achieved. Many of them are or were educated women who had the good fortune to come from privileged backgrounds. They were able to become politically active or pursue artistic ways of life mainly because they did not have to hold down jobs or bring up families on low incomes. Poorer women had and still have it much tougher. But even the most privileged among these women had to fight for what they wanted, simply because they were women and had lower status and less freedom than men. They are or were all brave and dedicated. The number of them who were imprisoned, for example, for their beliefs and political actions is remarkable.

We have taken a largely historical approach in this book and have chosen to include here women who have had full careers over the years and many achievements. Today’s younger women will, we know, be appearing in books like this in future decades. We also look forward with great excitement to seeing women from immigrant communities that have arrived more recently in Ireland emerging as rockers of the system too.

Rock on, women. Ireland has need of you.

Table of Contents

• Queen Medhbh (Maeve) • Gráinne Ní Mháille (Granuaile) • Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill • Anne Devlin • Anna Parnell • Augusta, Lady Gregory • Constance Markievicz • Peig Sayers • Hanna Sheehy Skeffington • Eileen Gray • Dorothy Stopford Price • Mainie Jellett • Dervla Murphy • Lelia Doolan • Sr Stanislaus Kennedy • Mary Robinson • Bernadette Devlin McAliskey • Garry Hynes • Paula Meehan • Sonia O’Sullivan

Editorial Reviews

Many battles have been won by these brave women and the unknown heroines who walked quietly alongside them. This book will inspire all its readers to play their part in creating a world that is fair, harmonious and equal.

From the Preface by Sabina Higgins

"Many battles have been won by these brave women and the unknown heroines who walked quietly alongside them. This book will inspire all its readers to play their part in creating a world that is fair, harmonious and equal." —Sabina Higgins, political activist and First Lady of Ireland


"This is a very timely and engaging book for this centenary year of women first getting the vote." —Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, lecturer, activist, and granddaughter of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington


"Rocking the System is historically accurate without feeling overly educational. Each profile features a gorgeous portrait illustration by Bren Luke, which I liked in particular as the style reminded me of the images that previously appeared on old punt notes . . . The most crucial thing about Rocking the System is however, the books ability to shine the light on women who have been, for one reason or another, edited out of the larger story of Ireland’s history. This book goes out of its way to show us HERSTORY . . . Books like Rocking the System are so crucial; they pay homage to those who have gone before and prepare a new generation of women who will no doubt keep rocking that system for years to come." —Ruth Concannon, Dublin City Libraries Reader in Residence

From the Publisher