Constance Markievicz

Hang on a second.

I studied history in college and I was always told that Countess Markievicz was up there like in St. Stephen's Green or wherever she was.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

They were equal in the battlefield with the Republican ideal.

know? So you can transplant that story to national level in ministerial terms.

You had Countess Markievicz and then you had to wait until 1979 when Charlie Hawhey appointed Moira Gagan Quinn.

And what did he do when he came back in power in 1981? He got rid of her and he sent her down to the junior benches, Moira Gagan Quindess, as he made her Minister of State.

So he put her into his first cabinet in 79, but in his second cabinet in 1981, he relegated her to the second tier, so-called.

Maybe give us a flavor of those women, their part to play in this, because obviously de Valera and Lamasse were large figures in this.

We know Constance Markievicz was in The Chair and The Scala, but maybe give us a flavor of the role of the revolutionary women that period in the formation of Fianna Fáil and the following years.

Yeah, I suppose the main thing is that I have looked for many years at the founding mothers and I think that in the 90s when we were looking at even anything political, there was this element that the women made the sandwiches and there are photographs in terms of gatherings where those images survive and I suppose it's back down to the roots of Fianna Fáil and what you call the grassroots and how quickly it grew within those parishes.

And you can see it later on when women are elected as the widows of TDs, and I can talk about that a little bit more later on.