UCD: Cumann na mBan Symposium
25 February 2022
UCD Gender Studies / Women’s History Association of Ireland (WHAI) present
Cumann na mBan, the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Split, 1922; A symposium.
This online symposium will take place on February 25th 200 from 2-4 pm.
On February 5th, 1922, the Cumann na mBan convention was held in Dublin to consider its response to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The executive of the organisation had already rejected the Treaty, as had all six women TDs. Cumann na mBan was the first major militant organisation to meet on the treaty, and the first to publicly split. Out of that split came an anti-Treaty Cumann na mBan who were actively militant during the Civil War, and a pro Treaty women’s organisation, Cumann na Saoirse, founded to support the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and the Irish Free State army. This symposium considers the important discussions, debates, impacts and legacies of that split, for political women and for women, more broadly, in the Free State.
Speakers
Dr Leeann Lane “I care not … if I take more of your time than you are willing to give”: Mary MacSwiney and the Treaty debates.
Dr Margaret Ward ‘Cumann na mBan debates the treaty’
Dr Mary McAuliffe ‘Sister against Sister; Cumann na mBan and Cumann na Saoirse, 1922-1923’
Professor Caitriona Beaumont ‘Cumann na mBan, the Anglo-Irish Treaty and women’s contribution to the new Irish state: my grandmother’s story’
