Hanna Sheehy Skeffington voices fears for Irish women in English jails
Dublin, 20 August 1918 - Hanna Sheehy Skeffington has returned to Ireland.
Having recently endured incarceration in Holloway Jail where she had gone on hunger strike, Mrs Sheehy Skeffington was initially denied a permit to allow her passage back to Ireland. It is understood that friends of Sheehy Skeffington in Dublin applied pressure to Viscount French, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as a result of which her permit was finally granted by the Home Office.
Mrs Sheehy Skeffington has expressed incomprehension at the conduct of the British Government in how they have treated her. Why, for instance, was she considered a ‘a dangerous undesirable’ one week and not the next?
More seriously, she has expressed concern about the Irish women, among them Kathleen Clarke, Maud Gonne MacBride, Constance Markievicz, still languishing in Holloway Prison, against whom no charges have been levelled and no trial has been held.
L-R: Maude Gonne, Kathleen Clarke and Constance Markievicz (Images: Library of Congress & Boston College)
Both Kathleen Clarke and Gonne MacBride were said to be in delicate health with the former under medical care.
‘Mrs Clarke has been attended by a doctor, sometimes twice a day, since her imprisonment. Madame Gonne MacBride has lost a stone in weight, and Countess Markievicz had only just recovered from an attack of German measles at the time she was arrested.’
As to her own plans, Mrs Sheehy Skeffington said that she intends to resume teaching French and German in the Technical Schools and to edit The Irish Citizen, which she ran with her late husband before his death, and has been overseen by a committee in her absence. On the advice of G.B. Shaw she intends to present the right of women to sit as members of parliament.
Mrs Sheehy Skeffington is currently residing with her sister, Mary Kettle, at 3 Belgrave Park.
Letter from R McCabe, 23 June 1918, re Interned Irishmen’ – notes that M Gonne McBride’s son has been allowed to visit her. Does this statement infer that the other interned persons are allowed visits.’ If so, McCabe renews his application for permit to visit Mr. Milroy in Lincoln Prison. (Image: National Archives of Ireland, CSO RP 1918 20316)
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
