Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington

Biography of Skeffington who was advocate for women's suffrage and outspoken feminist and peace activist Nationalist, pacifist, socialist, and above all feminist, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was one of the most significant Irishwomen of the first half of the twentieth century. Her career spanned nearly five decades--decades marked by political upheaval, repression, and violence. Yet, throughout these years she steadfastly held firm to her beliefs. She spoke and wrote in support of a free, independent, and unified Ireland built on James Connolly's socialist model; she argued for the end of militarism everywhere and she fought tirelessly for women's rights in Ireland and abroad. She represented the emergence of women as political and social forces in Ireland. As it unfolds for the first time in this biography, her life is the story of the new Irishwoman--intelligent, assertive, educated, and politically committed--and the story of her struggles to attain fundamental human rights in a society that was particularly resistant to granting them. "From Syracuse's Irish Studies series comes this excellent biography of an exceptional, determined woman. Sheehy-Skeffington (18771946) disavowed her church--no light matter in the Ireland of her time--was considered a leftist, waged unceasing battles for women's rights and for peaceful political solutions to her country's problems, and was "assertive" long before it was fashionable. Ideally matched with Francis Skeffington (who attached her name to his own when they were married), she was a major figure in the Irish scene during the first half of the 20th century. After the murder of Francis at the behest of a British officer, Hanna continued to serve the cause of freedom as editor, author and lecturer popular on the American circuit as well as at home. --Publishers Weekly