Pioneers of Womens Emancipation in Ireland

Mary Ann McCracken is better known as the sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the leaders of the rising of the United Irishmen in 1798. Less well known are her emancipative ideas concerning the lot of women in her day, which are revealed in her correspondence with her brother white he was imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail.

Anna Doyle Wheeler and Willam Thompson, both from the Anglo-Irish ascendancy are two outstanding figures among the early socialists of the nineteenth century. They had connections with leading socialists in Britain and France and had similar ideas on the emancipation of women. To James Connolly, the question of women's emancipation was not one to be tackled after the dawn of socialism but was an integral part of the struggle for socialism.

These four Irish pioneers of women's liberation show in their writings and in their social and political activities that they were at the forefront of political movements of their time.

Exclusive to Connolly Books