‘A Girl’s Eye View of the Irish Revolution’

Dr Marnie Hay gave a fascinating talk on the experiences of three adolescent girls during the Easter Rising. They left their impressions of the events of the Irish Revolution in the form of a diary, a witness statement and several poems. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Taylor not only witnessed the 1916 Easter Rising, but wrote a daily account of what she saw and heard in her diary. Former Clann na Gael Girl Scout Mary McLoughlin later related her experiences as a fifteen-year-old courier during the rebellion in a witness statement collected by James Connolly’s daughter Ina. Cork schoolgirl Mary Dalton reflected on the events of the War of Independence and the subsequent split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty through poetry. All three provided a girl’s eye view of the revolution.

The talk was part of a series of events exploring aspects of the exhibition ‘1916: Tales from the Other Side’, which ran in Marsh’s Library until December 2016. It is now available in an updated version online.

Biography:

Dr Marnie Hay is a lecturer in History at the St Patrick’s Campus of Dublin City University and the author of Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2009). Her current research focuses on Irish youth culture in the early twentieth century.