Two Belfast women, Mary Ann McCracken and Winifred Carney, will soon have statues commemorating their heroism, leadership and commitment to social justice and freedom erected in the grounds of Belfast City Hall. It was agreed at the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee last week that the Council will now begin the process of costing and designing the statues.
In 2012 an Equality Impact Assessment confirmed what anyone with eyes
already knew – that the grounds of Belfast City Hall were overwhelmingly
dominated by white, male, upper class and unionist images. The City Hall did
not reflect the reality of life in Belfast and especially of a changing
Belfast.
To address this imbalance Sinn Féin brought forward proposals four years
ago to transform the City Hall and grounds. The process has been slow as some
within the Council have sought to frustrate this new direction. However, last
Friday’s Council meeting has now moved the proposal around the two Belfast
women a decisive step forward.
Winifred
Carney was born in Bangor but was reared at 5 Falls Road. She attended the
Christian Brother’s School in Donegall Street where she worked for a time as a
junior teacher. She qualified as one of the first lady secretaries and short
hand typists in Belfast from Hughes Commercial Academy. Subsequently she worked
for a time in a solicitor’s office in Dungannon.
Winifred had a keen interest in the Irish language and
culture and joined the Gaelic League. She was a strong advocate for the rights
of women and was a committed socialist. She was very close to Marie Johnson who
worked as secretary for the Irish Textile Workers’ Union. The union had been
established by James Connolly in 1911.
When Marie became ill she asked Winifred to take over the
responsibility. Two years later Connolly, along with Winifred Carney, published
the Manifesto of Irish Textile Workers’
Union – To the Linen Slaves of Belfast.
Carney was also a member of the Cumann na mBan which she
joined with Connolly’s two daughters Nora and Ina Connolly. She was also
in the Irish Citizen Army. In 1916 she was the first women to enter the GPO
during the Rising. She worked closely with Connolly in preparing
dispatches.
When the GPO was evacuated after five days of fierce fighting Carney was
with the wounded Connolly as he was carried to number 16 Moore Street. There
five of the signatories to the Proclamation held their last meeting as the
Provisional Government. Julia Grenan, Winifred Carney and Elizabeth
O’Farrell were present and when Tom Clarke broke down at the prospect of
surrender Last Words tell us; “Miss Grenan and Miss Carney went across to
him to try and consol him but instead they themselves dissolved into tears and
Clarke comforted them.”
Following the surrender Winifred Carney was imprisoned in
England. She stood unsuccessfully for East Belfast in the 1918 election and
continued to work for the Transport Union. In 1920-22 she was secretary of the
Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependents Fund 1920-22. In 1922 she was imprisoned
in Armagh jail.
In 1928 she married George McBride. He had fought in the
First World War and was from the Shankill Road. They were both committed
socialists although differed on the national issue and the Rising. Winifred
Carney died on 21 November 1943 and was buried in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. Belfast
Graves erected a headstone on her grave in 1985.
Mary Ann McCracken was the sister of Henry
Joy McCracken, executed for his part in the 1798 Rebellion. She was a radical
thinker, social reformer, who was implacably opposed to slavery and poverty,
was a friend of the disadvantaged, and an advocate for the rights of women.
She was born in Belfast in July 1870 to a
wealthy Presbyterian family. Her Uncle Henry Joy raised the funding for the
construction of the Poor House by the Belfast Charitable Society – now Clifton
House – in 1774. Mary Ann McCracken was a member of the Board of the Society
and retained a close personal and working relationship with it until her death
in 1866.
In July 1798 her brother Henry Joy McCracken
was sentenced to be hanged for his part in the United Irish Rising. In a letter
she later described the events:
“I took his arm, and we walked together to the place of execution where
I was told it was the General’s orders that I should leave him, which I
peremptorily refused. Harry begged I would go. Clasping my hands around him, (I
did not weep til then) I said I could bear anything but leaving him. Three
times he kissed me and entreated I would go; and, looking round to recognise
some friend to put me in charge of he beckoned to a Mr. Boyd, and said ‘He will
take charge of you.’ ... and fearing that any further refusal would disturbed
the last moments of my dearest brother, I suffered myself to be led away.”
After the failure of the rebellion Mary Ann
dedicated her life to many causes. The breadth of her interests and activism is
remarkable. She helped provide education and apprenticeships for children
through the Poor House Ladies Committee. In 1847 at the age of 77 she was one
of those who established the “Ladies
Industrial School for the Relief of Destitution” with the aim of helping
those suffering as a result of An Gorta Mór.
Mary Ann was one of the first to support the
“Belfast Ladies Clothing Society” and
raised money for the “Society for the
Relief of the Destitute Sick”. She was a member of the committee that
lobbied for a change in the law to end the practice of ‘climbing boys.’ Their work involved scrambling up the chimney’s of
the wealthy to clean them. The risk of falling and the impact on the health of
the boys as they cleared away soot was significant.
Her opposition to slavery was relentless and
total. When Waddell Cunningham, a merchant, proposed in 1786 that the Belfast
Slave Ship Company be established the scheme was vehemently opposed by those
who later established the United Irish Society. This and the publication of
Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and the French and American revolutions hugely
influenced Mary Ann her brother Henry Joy and all of those who came to found
the United Irish Society in Belfast in October 1791.
In a letter written in 1859 Mary Ann recalls
how deeply Thomas Russell despised slavery. He was one of those: “ ... who in the days of Wilberforce
(campaigned against Slavery in England) abstained from the use of slave labour
produce until slavery in the west Indies was abolished, and at the dinner
parties to which he was so often invited and when confectionary was so much
used he would not taste anything with sugar in it ...”
Her opposition was such that as a small frail
woman she would hand out leaflets opposing slavery to those boarding vessels to
sail to the USA. In a letter written in 1859 – a year before the American Civil
War began, she describes America: “...considered
the land of the great. The brave, may more properly be styled the land of the
tyrant and the Slave ... Belfast, once so celebrated for its love of liberty is
now so sunk in the love of filthy lucre (money earned dishonourably) that there
are but 16 or 17 female anti-slavery advocates, for the good cause paying 2/6
yearly – not one man, tho’ several Quakers in Belfast and none to distribute
papers to American Emigrants but an old woman within 17 days of 89.”
Frail in body she might have been but strong
in heart and spirit she remained all of her days. Mary Ann McCracken died on
the 26 July 1866 aged 96.
Rab McCullough.
My condolences
to Marian and the family of Rab McCullough. Rab
died suddenly last week. He was one of Irelands
leading blues musicans. He played with AC/DC, Van Morrison, Rory
Gallagher, Jimmy Hendrix and other global rock stars. He alsotaught Bobby Sands to
play the guitar when they were imprisoned in the 1970s.
I wrote a little
piece about this recentlyafter Danny Devenney
published his
iconic print - The Session- featuring
Bobby, John Lennon, Che, Woody Gutherie and others
having a music session. Rab
gave me some details of Bobby’s early efforts to learn how to play the guitar and of his
musical influences. He, Tomboy Loudan and Bobby used to jam
together faoi glas na gallaimh.
Recently I asked
Rab if he would join Tomboy, BikMcFarlane and other
exprisoner musicans, post the covid restrictions, in a session of music
from the 60s and 70s that they played together
with Bobby in the Crum and Long Kesh. Rab
was delighted to be asked. He rhymed of a list of potential
numbers from Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan,John Lennon and others.
Tomboy also signed up. Bik agreed to ramrod that gig and we spoke
about it only last week. Unfortunately it won’t happen now. Not with Rab anyway. But his music will live on. Belfast Blues is a classic.
Go deanfaidh Dia
trocairear Rab. Mo comhbhrón le Marian agus a chlann.
Féile na gCloigíní Gorma.
Last week it was
an honour for me to be on a panel discussion about the Belfast Hills. This discussion- on zoom- was
part of Féile na gCloigíní and included
Lynda Sullivan, Friends of the Earth, Jim Bradley, Belfast Hills
Partnership, Maria Morgan, Ligoneil Improvement Association, and Melina Quinn, National Trust.
I recalled
the role the local community played in getting
quarrying on the mountain stopped and how the campaign for the conservation of the
Bog Meadows and Divis and Black Mountain developed. I made the point that none
of this would have happened witout local activism and the efforts of Terry Enwrigh
Snr, Adrian Crean, Terry Goldsmith and others. Colin Glen
has a similar history. Empowered communities can make a differance.
Getting my notes
together for this event started me thinking of the time when my family
got a house in the late 1950s in Ballymurphy. At that
time the Murph was surrounded by green fields. A river, now
mostly underground, ran parralell with Ballymurphy. That was one of our favourite
places to play when we weren’t on the mountain.
Springhill was yet to be built. It was a great green space - Husky’s
Field- with a big red bricked house used as a clinic, at its
centre. We went there for codliver oil and orangejuice. What is now
Springhill Avenue was a long tree lined avenue. The powers that be destroyed all that. They
eradicated every blade of grass and built Springhill, a
grey brick and black taramacked estate with all greenery
erased.
Thankfully that
too now is gone, following sustained
housing campaigns, from Divis to Moyard, Turf Lodge, the Shankill
and other remenants of disasterous housing developments from the 1960s.
There
were very old houses - The Yellow
Houses- at the corner of what is now Springfield Park.
They were a reminder that this was a rural area. There were a number of working
farms. One opposite Springhill. Another beside Corrigan Park. Yet another at the Top of the Rock at the left
hand junction of the Whiterock and Springfield Roads. We
usually went up the mountain via the mountain loney.
Therewas an old
tin church enroute, opposite Dermot Hill,smaller
but not dissimiliar to Saint Matthias’on
the Glen Road.
Above and behind that there
were two flax dams with swans and an epidemic of frogspawn
in the earlyspring. At the top of the loney
there was a spring of fresh
mountainwater, now piped off. Behind it was a track – now blocked- up to the Hatchet Field. We spent
childhood
summers on the mountain.That
track to the Hatchet
Field was our main route upwards towards the acres of buebells
which give Féile na gCloigíní Gorma its name.
We also
used to walk up to Torneroy - close to Lamh Dearg and listen to the Corncrakes
above Turf Lodge.
It is good that
Féile celebrates all this. But more importantly it also
looks with hope to the future. A future in which
humans can live in harmony with nature. In our case as
Belfast people in harmony with our Belfast Hills. My thanks to everyone who has
made this possible. Many thanks also to all who organise the many events of
Féile na gCloigíní Gorma. It
is based on the princilples of Community, Solidarity and Wellbeing. Great work
and very enjoyable also.
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