Irish Women’s Speeches: Voices That Rocked The System

Thirty-two inspiring speeches by women of Ireland from the nineteenth century to the present. Rallying cries for trade union action, denunciations of apartheid, calls for independence, unionism, peace and gender equality: Irish women have eloquently expressed their demands from platforms in America to podiums at the United Nations. This anthology showcases the stirring contributions that Irish women have made both to modern Irish society and to global development.

Arm yourselves with weapons to fight your nation’s cause. Arm your souls with noble and free ideas.
Countess Markievicz

There is no place in society for us, the ordinary peasants of Northern Ireland.
Bernadette Devlin

Travellers are not just statistics. We are people with faces, names and voices …
Nan Joyce

In Kerry you’re better off to be a greyhound than a woman, at least that’s what I was told …
Mamo McDonald

Any woman voting for divorce is like a turkey voting for Christmas.
Alice Glenn

The Ireland I will be representing is a new Ireland, open, tolerant, inclusive.
Mary Robinson