red mum

Ehm anything but packing, we went to see the new house and had a lovely walk along the way.

I WILL be getting back to my famous Irish women series as it is not only something that I really enjoy doing but it has also put me in touch with people I wouldn’t have come across before.

Like Peg who read my piece on Nellie Cashman- the Angel of Tombstone and who was recreating one of Nellie’s 350m supply journey throught the Koyukuk region in Alaska.

Or Lindie Naughton who has researched the incredible life of Lady Mary Heath, written a book about her and is now seeking to make a movie on her incredible life. The more hits the clip gets the more chances they have of getting backing. Click and enjoy.

WHAT an amazing woman, did any of you catch the BBC 1 programme Northern Star? I was enthralled from beginning to end.

Jocelyn Bell is truly an inspiration, the programme showed her as a student, as a lecturer, as a scientist and an amazing woman.

“I hope younger women have an easier ride than I’ve had, I’ve had to fight quite hard most of my working life.”

If I thought she was something special beforehand I think it even more now, wow. And where do I begin here.

So many things strike me about the programme and it’s insight into Jocelyn Bell. One is her own non-belief in herself for so many years because she didn’t get the qualifying as it was known, or the 11+. Speaking to students in her old school she said: “Failing an exam is not fatal.”

And probably because she was brought up in the Quaker faith where girls where encouraged to be educated unlike many around her she continued her studies.

She also spoke of how hard her life as a scientist and a woman was. Despite discovering pulsars she explained of how when she became engaged she was taken less seriously. Because it was somehow obvious to the men she worked with that she would no longer want a career as a scientist when she became a wife. This wasn’t obvious for Jocelyn and it must have been so frustrating for her at that time.

Her authorship on the pulsar discovery and the subsequent Nobel Prize was only really stamped after another leading scientist, Fred Hoyle, wrote a letter to the Times stating that the award should have gone to her also instead of just to her Professor. This instigated a media burst for Jocelyn Bell and the beginnings of people’s recognition of her massive discovery.

Course her Professor Anthony Hewish who was awarded the Nobel Prize disagreed but he would in fairness. It was funny watching their different accounts of particular incidents. Such as one where Susan explained how she approached him with her first findings. The instruments were recalibrated and after a particular period of time nothing happened and he threw a wobbly. His account tells of how he just teased her about it.

But then the readings came again. And of course during her trawling through three miles of paper she studied the pulsars more.

During her research to pinpoint what was going on she told of how she drove out to the laboratory in freezing cold weather on her moped, the equipment wasn’t working so she cursed and kicked it and got five minutes out of it. Somehow luck was on her side, well not to mention her hard work, she got the pulses, or scrum again.

When I researched Susan before I read her comments on the Nobel Prize where she was outrageously gracious about not being included and I did find it strange. But it is clear that isn’t how she feels now if she ever really felt that way about it and that now she does feel robbed.

Her former Professor, the Nobel awardee obviously doesn’t feel this way and almost dismissed her as having found some kind of feminism. I would have thought that a Professor could have come up with something better than that.

The programme brought the two together at the end and that was soo telling to. At one stage Susan said to him ‘you opened a big door’ and he replied saying something like it was a big part of his career. And then silence, that uncomfortable silence. I think that says so much about her.

Susan now spends a lot of time in Donegal as well as everywhere else she is as a scientist. She said of Donegal: “I am confused as to what I am, there is something in the coast and mountains that appeals to me.”

There is no confusion to me, Susan Jocelyn Bell, is a role model and an inspiration.

You may remember Susan Jocelyn Bell from my Great Irish Women series. A hugely lauded and accomplished scientist, Susan discovered pulsars when she was only 24 years old.

Well BB1 Northern Ireland is showing a programme about her this evening, sorry I meant to blog about it before now, at 10:45pm ‘Northern Star’.

Astrophysicist Susan will talk about the impact of her massive discovery, being a woman in the science field and more I am sure.

Now the real question is whether or not Nanny will allow me to watch the show. Seriously I have to fight over the remote control. But seeing as how the apprentice is on shortly and she LOVES the show, as do I now thanks to herself and Tetra, so maybe I will get to watch about our own Nobel Prize winner.

Okay okay she didn’t win the prize but it was her discovery that won the prize and that is as good as in my book.

Oh and I hope Kristina wins The Apprentice. I thought that other eejit woman, Katie, was an absolute talker with no substance whatsoever. ‘Global Brand Consultant’, yeah yeah, for the Met Office. How does that work? That title to me reeks of ‘Refuse Technician’ for ‘Bin Collector’ to me. The guy Simon inspires nothing in me, I thought he was sh*te, all talk again with crazy ideas, likeable though.

Anyway do check out Northern Star on BBC1 at 10:45pm. Right I’m off to watch the Apprentice.

NORMAL service must be resuming here because here’s the next in my Great Irish Women series. I will draw up a straw poll for a future post and give you the choice for the next one, the most mentions in the post comments (ha if indeed there’ll be any) is the next one.

Delia was born in February 27, 1878 in Toxeth Park, Liverpool. The fifth child and eldest surviving daughter of Mary Ann McNulty and James Larkin, Delia lost her father to TB when she was nine and her two eldest brothers, Hugh and James had to work to support the family. Delia herself started work early to help out the family.

She is first recorded as living in Ireland in 1911′s census when she lived in Broadstone, Dublin 7 with her brother James. The census records her as being a teacher though she was known to be a nurse in Liverpool.

At one stage it is thought she ran a hotel in Rostrevor when her brother was strike leader with the National Union of dock labourers in Belfast in 1907.

She felt passionate about women’s involvement in trade unions and how their voices should be held in the same regard as men’s. So in the summer of 1911 she established a trade union for women called the Irish Women Workers Union (IWWU) within the ITGWU which was founded by her brother James.

The new union was advertised with a column in the Irish Worker where Delia wrote about housing, social conditions, and votes for women. She said: “all we ask for is just shorter hours, better pay than the scandalous limit now existing and conditions of labour befitting a human being”.

In a short period of time the union has fundraised enough monies to help the families of victimisation.

By 1912 the union had 1,000 members and was seeking independent affiliation from the ITGWU to the ITCU and was represented by Delia at three annual conferences from 1912 to 1914. Delia also represented women on Ireland’s first trades board which was formed to regulate pay within the poorly paid manufacturing sectors where women worked.

While she was doing all this, Delia was also organising a drama section of the union, the Irish Workers Dramatic Class, a choir as well as campaigning on votes for women.

In 1913 the Dublin tram strike took place and was spreading throughout the city. Dublin was paralysed by the lock-out and thousands were unemployed.

The dispute hit Jacob’s in September following workers wearing the IWWU badge, 310 women were locked out within a week.

James Larkin went to England while Delia took charge of Liberty Hall where she organised feeding the thousands of workers locked out and their families. This involved daily breakfasts for 3,000 children, lunches as well as distributing other necessities such as clothing.

A plan to send workers’ children to England was opposed by Archbishop Walsh who thought the Catholic children would be sent to the homes of ‘atheists and Socialists’. Delia ended up in a stand-off after another plan to send the workers’ children to Belfast by train before she was eventually compelled to retrace her steps to Liberty Hall with the children.

The lock out continued until February 1914 and with 400 of her union members not reinstated, the union drama group began to tour with the troop consisting of the locked-out members.

That June she stood unsuccessfully for the Poor Law elections in Dublin and was the only woman in 13 candidates nominated by trade unions.

A row over payment for Liberty Hall saw her in June looking for new premises for the union and then her rejection as a proposed member of the Ladies’ Advisory Committee which was formed to provide relief work in Ireland.

When her brother Big Jim went to the States in 1915 Delia went to Liverpool where she is believed to have worked as a nurse. She returned to Ireland to work on the anti-conscription campaign of Irish men into the British army and was also refused membership of the reorganised IWWU who told her she should join the Irish Clerical Workers’ Union who in turn also refused her membership.

After 1916 Delia began to write for the Red Hand, something her brother disagreed with as he believed it could cause disunity within the union.

In 1918 she campaigned on behalf of the Sydney 12 continuing her lifelong passion for workers’ rights and eventually went back to work in Liberty Hall.

At the age of 43 she married former Irish Citizens’ Army member Pat Colgan and ill-health forced her out of the passions that drove her in her younger years. She said: “I was forced into this life against all inclinations”.

Delia died at home in October 26, 1949 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. She remains an inspirational union women who was driven by her belief in equality.

Sources here, here and here and you can read more here. And you can get the postcards I was talking about here.