votes for women, though the Ulster unionists committed themselves to giving votes to women if they set up a Provisional Government.
Women during World War I In Ireland during World War I, women encouraged men to enlist and cheered on the enlisting soldiers. When Irishmen went off to fight in the war, more women got jobs in factories, offices, banks, schools and hospitals. As Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, Irishwomen over the age of 30 got the vote in 1918 because of the role women played in World War I.
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, a leading suffragette campaigner
Elizabeth O’Farrell, a nurse, accompanied Pearse as he surrendered to General Lowe. Later, she took the surrender message to other rebel garrisons. O’Farrell’s feet are just visible beyond Pearse.
Women in the independence movement Irishwomen were also involved in the independence movement. Cumann na mBan was founded in 1914 ‘to assist in arming and equipping a body of Irishmen for the defence of Ireland’. Its most famous member was Countess Markievicz, who was also active in the Irish Citizen Army and Sinn Féin. She was second-in-command of a Volunteer group in the College of Surgeons during the 1916 Rising. She was sentenced to death after the Rising but she was not executed because she was a woman. She also became the first woman to be elected to parliament in Westminster in 1918. However, as a Sinn Féin TD, she refused to take her seat (abstained).
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Countess Markievicz, who took part in the 1916 Rising
