Kathleen Clarke

Kathleen Clarke ( Irish Caitlín Bean Uí Chléirigh , born April 11, 1878 in Limerick , † September 29, 1972 in Liverpool ) was an Irish politician and senator. In 1939 she was elected Dublin's first female mayor .

Life

She was born Kathleen Daly in Limerick in 1878. Her father Edward Daly was an active Fenian and Irish nationalist. Since the father died early, her uncle John took care of the young girl and her siblings. In March 1899 she met Thomas James Clarke . Clarke was a very active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and had just served a long prison sentence. Despite the large age difference of over 20 years, the two married in New York in 1901. The marriage resulted in three sons: John Daly (* 1902), Tom Junior (* 1908) and Emmet (* 1910). In 1907 the couple returned to Ireland to take an active part in the struggle for Irish independence.

In Dublin, the couple ran a tobacco shop and Kathleen Clarke began to get involved in Republican organizations. So in 1914 she became a founding member of Cumann na mBan (German "League of Women"). She should organize the support of Irish women for the Irish Volunteers . At the Easter Rising of 1916, she was not actively involved. However, she had been given the task of supporting the activists' families. After the uprising failed, her husband was executed on May 3, 1916, and her younger brother Edward Daly was executed a day later. Shortly afterwards, she suffered a miscarriage. Despite these personal blows of fate, she still organized financial support for the survivors of the uprising.

She then continued her political career at Sinn Féin . Clarke was elected to the party's executive branch as early as 1917. A year later she was arrested for her political activities and was held in Holloway Women's Prison in London until the spring of 1919 . There she made contact with other female activists, such as Countess Markievicz and Maud Gonne . During the Irish War of Independence, she was under constant surveillance by the British authorities. Nevertheless, she remained politically active and also gave shelter to persecuted Republicans. Eventually she became chairman of a Sinn Féin court in Dublin. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in 1921 , Kathleen Clarke was one of the most vocal opponents of the agreement, believing it to be a betrayal of the ideals for which her husband and brother had died.

In 1921 she was elected to the second Dáil Éireann , the Irish Parliament, as a member of the Dublin Mid West constituency. However, she lost this mandate again a year later due to her rejection of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1926 she followed Eamon de Valera when he founded his new party, Fianna Fáil . From June to September 1927, Clarke sat for the Dublin North constituency in the 5th Dáil. From 1928 to 1936 she was a member of the Irish Senate . In the 1930s she took an increasingly critical stance towards her party. In particular, the conservative image of the role of women and the 1937 constitution met with rejection from Clarke. In 1939, however, she was elected the first female Lord Mayor of Dublin for Fianna Fáil. When she moved into the Mansion House , her official residence, she first had the portraits of British monarchs removed and replaced the old English chain of office from the 17th century with a chain of office made in Ireland.

After the end of her term of office in 1941, she largely withdrew from political life, became involved in several hospitals and looked after the graves of fallen nationalists. In 1943 she drew the consequences of the increasing estrangement from Fianna Fáil and left the party. In 1948 she tried again to make a political comeback when she tried in vain to win a seat in parliament for the Clann na Poblachta party . Kathleen Clarke left Ireland in 1965 to live in Liverpool with her youngest son, Emmet. She died there in 1972. Her body was transferred to Ireland, where she was given a state funeral. Her grave is in Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin.

Kathleen Clarke was one of the most influential and contentious women in Irish politics during the first half of the 20th century. Her main concerns were Irish independence and a greater role for women in society. She advocated these goals with determination and passion, sometimes with a dose of stubbornness. After her husband's execution, she used to introduce herself as Mrs. Tom Clarke to emphasize her commitment to her husband's political goals.

literature

• Helen Litton (Editor): Kathleen Clarke, 1878–1972 An Autobiography , 1991
• Kathleen Clarke, Helen Litton (Editor): My Fight For Ireland's Freedom , 1997