Page 63 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

Of those, three women signed in the parliamentary division
23
of Wicklow, all at Tinahely. In Wicklow East there were
24
eighteen female signatories , all signing in Greystones, eight of
whom gave Greystones addresses, the other ten with Dublin
addresses. That makes up the twenty-one women coming
officially under the heading of Co Wicklow signatories. However,
a further twenty-five women giving Co Wicklow addresses
signed outside the county, eighteen in Dublin, two in Liverpool,
two in Lisburn and one each in Hillsborough, in Larne and in
Gilford, Co Down. Of those twenty-five, one came from
Redcross, three from Delgany, nine from Greystones, while
25
twelve had addresses in Bray. One of the latter, although
included in the Dublin folder, is in a slightly different category to
the others: Mary Moore, born in Co Londonderry in about 1855,
had been living in Bray since at least 1901 as ‘servant maid’ in
the household of widower, retired RIC officer and Unionist
activist, Bernard George Shaw, at 1 Florence Terrace. For
26
whatever reason, Mary was unable to add her name to the
Declaration in the standard way. What survives, therefore, is not

23 At the same time, ten men from the same constituency signed the
Covenant.
24 There were no male signatories in Wicklow East.
25 This information is extracted from the digitised version of the Ulster
Covenant and Declaration, online at
https://apps.proni.gov.uk/ulstercovenant/Search.aspx The figure of forty-six
women with Wicklow connections is certainly an under-estimate, including
only those women who signed in Wicklow or who signed elsewhere giving a
Wicklow address. For instance, Gwen Savage Armstrong, daughter of
George Francis Savage Armstrong, known as ‘the poet of Wicklow’, was
born and spent much of her early life in Bray. However, on the Declaration
her address and place of signing is given as Strangford, Co Down, and on
that basis she must be excluded from this study.
26 Bernard George Shaw had the distinction of being ‘the sole survivor [in
1903] of the 400 men and 10 officers who formed the guard’ for Queen
Victoria and the Prince Consort during their visit to Killarney in 1861.
Wicklow Newsletter, 10 December 1910 and Tyrone Courier, 30 July 1903.
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