From the Second Countess Markievicz School May 13, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Press Release
‘Only those who don’t do care dismiss it’ Prof. Kathleen Lynch
Yesterday in Dublin, the Second Countess Markievicz School addressed the themes of Women & the Constitution, Women & Care and Women’s Voices in the Community. Camille Loftus, social policy lecturer UCD/NUIM agreed the suffragettes such as Markievicz, who had fought for equality in 1916 had been let down by the 1937 Constitution, but ‘the codifying had set in’ before this. She continued to explain how ‘a new range of social welfare measures served to consolidate women’s marginal role in the system’ in the 1970s. Loftus warned how removing Article 41.2 could result in care being relegated to the private sector. Former Supreme Court Judge Catherine McGuinness warned critical questions should be asked about the upcoming Constitutional Convention.
‘Only people who don’t do care dismiss it’ Prof. Kathleen Lynch of Equality Studies, UCD articulated that there is a ‘moral imperative on women to care…they are judged if they don’t have children and if they do’. Migrant rights’ activist Mariaam Bhatti gave a chilling account of the lives of some migrant women in Ireland. She herself had worked a 12-14hr day, 6 days a week for €400 a month. ‘Remember you are undocumented’ Irish employers warned domestic workers who attempted to leave their employment. Bhatti told an anecdote of a migrant worker whose employer sent her a friend request on Facebook, yet wouldn’t speak to her at the kitchen table.
Cathleen O Neill from Kilbarrack CDP asserted how the community development sector ‘had been dismantled’, citing the McCarthy report which helped decimate the sector with its ‘no evidence of positive outcomes’ comment. In keeping with the spirit of Countess Markievicz, O’Neill made ‘a call to arms’ for Irish women. The day ended when Senator Katherine Zappone unveiled a brooch Countess Markievicz made for the mother of an elderly neighbour in Wicklow, where Markievicz walked in the 1920s.
For more information contact:
Niamh Murray, Countess Markievicz Committee PRO, 087- 906 9344
The Countess Markievicz School was established in 2011 as a forum on women in Ireland by graduates of Equality Studies, School of Social Justice, UCD to honour Ireland’s first female politician, elected in 1919
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Lynch is a very inspiring person.
I see no legitimate reason at all why men can’t be primary carers or rather why care work in society can’t be shard equally.
A number of months ago Pat Kenny’s radio show had a discussion on this which featured an interview with the owner of a creche who WAS A MAN!!
The mediated text lines were replete with vague concerns texters had over allowing men mind children – a concern shared by Kenny judging by his line of questioning and how he centered the debate around this ‘abnormal’ behaviour of a man working in a creche. The show reinforced the archaic notion that men should be out accumulating profits while women should be minding the kids.
LikeLike
There was a letter in the IT recently from a care worker who had been denied an interview for a job he was qualified for because he was a man.
We all know that women face discrimination in certain sectors that have been traditionally dominated by males, but if a woman applied for a job as a construction worker or a security guard and her employer denied her the job on the basis of her gender, the employer would create some excuse. In that case, the employer would know that is not socially or legally acceptable to discriminate on the basis of gender. In the case of men working in care work settings etc., it is socially acceptable to treat men differently. It is not interpreted as discrimination to treat men differently.
LikeLike
‘Only people who don’t do care dismiss it’
That issue came up at a conference in Denmark last week as part of that country’s EU Presidency. One of the speakers summarised researcg on how wage rates have been set in collective bargaining agreements in her country. Driving a vehicle? extra reposnibility allowance, but none if you’re minding children. Digging holes? extra skill allowance, but none if you need training in child psychology or first-aid.
LikeLike
“The Countess Markievicz School was established in 2011 as a forum on women in Ireland by graduates of Equality Studies, School of Social Justice, UCD to honour Ireland’s first female politician, elected in 1919”
Actually, she was elected in November 1918. She was in prison at the time. On her release, she went to the House of Commons, looked at her coat peg, had a cup of tea and never set foot in the place again.
I wonder how many of the people involved in or attending The Countess Markievicz School are doing in Ireland in 2012 the equivalent to what she was doing in Ireland in 1912.
One of Markievicz’s early activities, about two-three years after she first starting attending republican and left meetings, was being an organiser of the anti-Royal Visit protests of 1911. Indeed, she set fire to a Union Jack at the time. How many of the organisers and attendees of the Markievicz School participated in the anti-Royal visit protests of 2011? My guess would be almost none.
Do people who are not prepared to emulate her have any business appropriating her name?
Philip Ferguson
http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/
LikeLike
Of course she also joined FF at the end of her life. And I’ve heard a plausible argument that for many left Republicans that was the only option for them given that the LP had stood back from the WOI (and given its stance over the Treaty). But I think there’s a danger in trying to map now to then – I wasn’t much of a fan of the visit of QEII – but the situations were distinctively different from 1911, and while you’re right there’s a fair bit of divergence in her actual actions from what people pick up on later as an inspirational figure I’m not so sure it’s dishonourable to do so.
LikeLike
“I wonder how many of the people involved in or attending The Countess Markievicz School are doing in Ireland in 2012 the equivalent to what she was doing in Ireland in 1912.”
You know, you really should have googled the names of the speakers before asking that question – unless of course you’re arguing that the near 30-yr working class activism of someone like Cathleen O’Neil is that of a namby-pamby liberal.
Maybe Cathleen should drop all of that and set up a blog like yourself, Philip, and become a keyboard warrior – that’ll show the world how to get things done.
Sorry. Not a keyboard warrior but a SOCIALIST REPUBLICAN keyboard warrior dontchaknow, marking the IRISH REVOLUTION through the devastating method of ‘typing’.
What a div.
LikeLike
Your view that because someone has a blog they don’t do anything else indicates a rather blinkered view of political activism on your part. And the silly personal abuse says more about you than me.
Phil
LikeLike
Bit rich on the personal abuse as that’s the card you played with criticising the speakers for not being as radicial as you.
Fact remains you criticised speakers such as Catleen O’Neil for not being radical when she was running working class education courses while you were still a teenager with Bobby Sands posters on your wall.
As for the blog criticism – well I had never come across you on the ground in all the years I’ve spent involved with working class initiatives in this city, so yeah, I’ll take it you are a keyboard warrior with a penchant for youtube videos and articles for organisations with links to drug dealers.
The fucking cheek of a guy who writes for the IRSP talking about who’s radical and who is not.
Many of the people at the conference last week were involved with the pushers out movement – the IRSP’s armed wing gives those very pushers protection.
shame on you and your organisartion.
LikeLike
Sean, now you’ve added wilful misrepresentation to personal abuse.
I never criticised Kathleen O’Neill for anything, let alone not being radical; I never even mentioned her. What I said was that I guessed *not many* of the people involved would be prepared to do what Markievicz did. *Not many* is not the same as none, let alone the same as criticising Kathleen O’Neill.
Your internet warrior accusation is just as groundless. it does indicate quite a lot about you, though, that you repeat something you’ve purely made up out of thin air.
There are other cities in the world beside Dublin, you know. It’s hilarious that because you haven’t come across me personally in the big wide world you think I mustn’t be, or ever have been, active in anything. Perhaps you just need to get out more, mo chara.
And sorry to disappoint you, I never had Bobby Sands posters on my wall. And nor am I, nor have I ever been, a member of the IRSP. But you’re apparently not one to let facts get in the way of your apparent need to cram as much personal abuse and straw man arguments as you can into 100 words.
Your toxic, abusive posts here do serve one useful purpose, however. They just remind me why I generally tend to steer away from these kinds of sites. One of the reasons I finally set up a blog of my own was to have somewhere where participants didn’t mistake volume and toxicity for a half-decent line of argument.
Love,
Phil
LikeLike
I’ll ask the same question I asked when you recently accused others of abusing her name and then suggested she’d be in éirígí or the IRSP, On the basis of her membership of Fianna Fáil, how are you not guilty of doing the same thing?
LikeLike
She was a left-republican or socialist-republican. When she joined Fianna Fail, there weren’t many options and that party’s original platform was left-wing enough to get them accused of being “communists”.
She died before FF even entered Leinster House, let alone government.
What would be the equivalent organisation today holding her sort of left-republican views? I’d say probably eirigi or the IRSP, certainly not FF.
Phil
LikeLike
PS: As for describing Markievicz as “Ireland’s first female politician”, I wonder what she herself would make of that sort of description.
LikeLike
And I wonder what she would make of the IRSP’s known links with drug dealers and protection rackets.
what a scumbag.
LikeLike