Louie Bennett

Louie Bennett (7 January 1870 – 25 November 1956) was an Irish suffragette, trade unionist, journalist and writer. Born and raised in Dublin, she established the Irish Women's Suffrage Federation in 1911. She was a joint editor and contributor to the Irish Citizen newspaper. She wrote two books, The Proving of Priscilla and A Prisoner of His Word (1908), and continued to contribute to newspapers as a freelance journalist. She played a significant role in the Irish Women Workers' Union, and was the first woman president of the Irish Trade Union Congress. Her father, James Bennett, ran the family business as a fine art auctioneer and valuer on Ormond Quay. Her mother, Susan Boulger, came from a family of some social standing in Dublin. The family later moved to the suburb of Killiney, overlooking Dublin Bay. Her mother's family disapproved of her parents' marriage; Susan Boulger came from a British Army family who did not approve of their daughter marrying "into trade".

She was initially educated at home with her brothers and sisters, but later went to a boarding school in England, and for a time, to Alexandra College in Dublin. She briefly studied music in Bonn, Germany. As a young girl she immersed herself in novels by Dickens, Meredith, Austen and Thackeray, and was introduced to women's rights by reading George Eliot. She published two novels, The Proving of Priscilla (published by Harpers, 1902) and A Prisoner of His Word (Maunsel, 1908).

Suffrage movement and the Irish Citizen

Suffrage movement The terms suffragette (militant) and suffragist (non-militant) are used to describe those who campaigned for the rights of women to vote. From the late 1800s, suffrage societies were emerging in Ireland in response to changing social and political times. Louie Bennett and Helen Chenevix absorbed the Irishwomen's Suffrage and Local Government Association (IWSLGA) and scattered local suffrage societies into the Irish Women's Suffrage Federation (IWSF), an umbrella group for most of the non-militant suffrage societies, in 1911: the year suffragettes refused to participate in the census in protest at their lack of a vote. After Carrie Chapman Catt and Jane Addams formed a Women's Peace Party in the United States in January 1915, suffragists divided on the correct stance for women towards war. British suffragettes and unionist-leaning campaigners in Ireland abandoned or postponed all suffrage work. In the Irish Citizen, Bennett stated unequivocally that "Women should never have abandoned their struggle for justice, war or no war".

Some members of the Irish suffrage movement were also involved in the independence movement, though others were unionists. As the fighter for both suffrage and freedom Sidney Czira (John Brennan) put it in an interview with RTÉ Television, the suffragists wanted to get into the British parliament, and the independence movement wanted to get out of it.

Involvement with the Irish Citizen In 1920, Bennett took over financial and editorial control of the Irish Women's Franchise League's paper, the Irish Citizen. It had been founded in 1912 to further the causes of suffrage and feminism in Ireland and was first edited by James Cousins and Francis Sheehy Skeffington. Sheehy Skeffington was murdered in 1916 by British soldiers during the Easter rising. In 1945, the Union organised a successful three-month strike for improved conditions and won the entitlement, subsequently enjoyed by all Irish workers, to two weeks' paid annual holidays. On the political front, the Union was also an effective lobbying organisation that sought to make progress on a range of issues of direct relevance to Irish women by working to influence the wider trade union movement as well as successive governments. Bennett continued to be involved in a leadership role until 1955.

The Irish Trades Union Congress She was a member of the national executive of the Irish Trades Union Congress from 1927 to 1932, and from 1944 to 1950. In 1932, Bennett became its first woman president and was elected to the position again in 1948.

Political activity In 1927, she was elected to the executive committee of the Labour Party.

Bennett died on 25 November 1956, aged 86. Her funeral was attended by many trade union and Labour figures including William Norton. She is buried at Deans Grange Cemetery, sharing a grave with her mother, father and brother Lionel Vaughan Bennett. In the year following her death, R.M. Fox published a book titled Louie Bennett, Her Life and Times, based on her reminiscences to him in the final year of her life.

In 1996, she was commemorated with a stamp by An Post. The 32 pence stamp described her as a suffragette and trade unionist.