One month after Hanna Sheehy Skeffington died, the fifth edition of her lecture ‘British militarism as I have known it’ appeared in print. Four earlier editions from her provocative 1917–18 American tour, in which she exposed the murder of her husband Francis, had sold out. The Leinster Leader announced the publication stating in no uncertain terms that ‘the heroic perseverance of the talented Irish lady achieved results which wrought considerable damage to England's prestige’. Sheehy Skeffington had written a new foreword to the publication in the weeks before she died, asserting her fight against British imperialism which had engaged ‘tireless efforts’ to ‘prevent the truth from being made public’. Right up to the point that death took her, Hanna was politically active and, as the title of Margaret Ward's biography attests, fearless. Sheehy Skeffington continued to write letters and articles in support of numerous causes until her death. During the strike by national school teachers in 1946, she reminded readers of the Irish Press to show support after all ‘the teachers have always played a brave part in every national struggle – Pearse, McDonagh, Thomas Ashe and how many others’. This was to be her last letter to the newspaper. However, due mainly to the recovery work of Margaret Ward, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington's memory and legacy lives on.
Ward originally published a biography, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: a life, in 1997. This was undoubtedly the first comprehensive publication to make full use of the superb Sheehy Skeffington papers in the National Library of Ireland. In her review in the Sunday Trribune, Catriona Crowe applauded Ward's volume under the fitting heading, ‘The feminist agenda’. Indeed, this original volume introduced the academic community and the wider public to the remarkable life and work of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington before Irish women occupied their due space in history books. Previous biographies of her were limited, including a volume by Maria Luddy who was confined to a succinct style as part of the Historical Association of Ireland's life and times series. An earlier biography published in 1983, written by Leah Levenson and Jerry Natterstad, avoided a thorough examination of Sheehy Skeffington's republicanism.
Fearless woman is a revised version of Ward's original biography, described on the back cover as ‘substantially rewritten and updated’. A mere glance at the bibliography confirms the wealth of new sources consulted, including the more recently available Bureau of Military History witness statements, along with a host of related secondary material published on women's history since the 1990s. This rewrite is in fact extensive and adds yet more perspective to the tireless social, nationalist and feminist work of Sheehy Skeffington; her activism spanned over half a century. Of particular note are the resources at the beginning of this volume, including the ‘suffrage friends and colleagues of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington’ which provides a valuable overview of the main characters mentioned but also shows the stretch that Hanna reached from connections with key first wave feminist activist Anna Haslam to the trade unionist Helena Molony.
Ward argued, in an online launch of this book, that Hanna Sheehy Skeffington deserves her place among the ‘male giants of the period of the War of Independence’ such as Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins. Continuing that, ‘in terms of what she contributed to Irish society both for women and also in terms of fighting for social justice generally … Hanna was pre-eminent in this role. She even stood in 1943, three years before her death, as a candidate for the Dáil, standing on a platform for the workers’ republic and for feminism.’
Recognition is certainly warranted and with a place being carved out for Irish women's history, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is finding her just position as a key character who helped shape a modern Ireland. Fearless woman, along with Ward's companion volume Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, suffragette and Sinn Féiner: her memoirs and political writings, continues to expand the knowledge base. Popular historical accounts distributed through exhibitions, web sites, newspapers and numerous social media sources, are embracing the exciting history of her life and work. These accounts draw directly on Ward's research and writings often without once citing the original source. It is disparaging to witness a feminist historian dedicate decades to recovering the overlooked significance of Irish women in our history, only for her work be written out of her own historical record. Feminist historians such as Margaret Ward deserve recognition of their work and contribution to the writing of Irish women's history.
