Page 57 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

Wicklow women in her opposition to Home Rule. From the 1880s
on, unionist women throughout Ireland involved themselves in
successive anti-Home Rule campaigns. Prior to the general
election of 1885 the chairman of an ‘enthusiastic meeting of the
loyalists of West Wicklow’ at Knockenarrigan in the Glen of Imaal
proposed that a demonstration be held in the district ‘in protest
against any measure that would involve repeal of the Union‘, to
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be attended by ‘men, women, and children too.’ Eight years
later, as Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill made its way
through Parliament, ‘many ladies’ were among the ‘crowded
attendance’ at a protest meeting in the Assembly Hall in Wicklow
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town , and a hostile account in The Wicklow People of a Unionist
meeting at the Parochial School in Shillelagh in April 1893 noted
the presence of ‘a supply of the scullery and chamber-maids’
from Coollattin House, as well as the wives of local notables and
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estate dependents, imported ‘to swell the ranks of coercionism’.
Campaign against 3 Home Rule Bill
rd
From 1911 on, with Home Rule now a very real possibility,
opponents reactivated their campaign, and women were more
than ever prominently involved. At a meeting held at Woodbrook,
Bray in November 1912 the chairman, Sir Edward Verner,
declared that ‘he was glad to see so many ladies present there
… as it was they who would … bring the men out.' That was the
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only phase of Home Rule he believed in.’ At the same time, with

4 Wicklow Newsletter, 31 October 1885. The meeting was chaired by Mr
Hume Dick, and was called at the behest of Rev T C O’Connor, rector of
Donaghmore and Donard. Rev O’Connor, who was rector of the parish from
1874 until his death in 1913, was described in his obituary as ‘an
uncompromising opponent of Home Rule’ and a leading Orangeman. See
Church of Ireland Gazette, 13 June 1913.
5 Dublin Daily Express, 9 March 1893.
6 Wicklow People, 22 April 1893.
7 Dublin Daily Express, 8 November 1912.
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