Welcome to 'Blazing a Trail: Lives and
Legacies of Irish Diaspora Women'.
Irish women blazed a trail across the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries,
innovating in every field from science to sports, and art to politics. Here we tell their stories.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a name I have known in the family for a long time
and that's because she overlapped with my grandmother. Both of them had
very strong socialist principles and
ideals and of course Gurley Flynn was
very fiery and spoke at lots of meetings
and had the ability to mobilize lots of
male workers as well as the women
workers. I admire that about her like my
grandmother and they spoke out in an era even more antagonistic to women
prominence I think that's really important and it's great to have them as role models.
I wanted to talk about Aleen Cust who became a vet in the early
1900's she went to college in the late
1890s and even though she stopped her
task it was incredibly bright and
capable and recognized as such she had
been all scratching their heads and
wondering could they allow this woman
she's porn part of that debate about
what women could and should be allowed
to do why didn't I know more about Lola
Ridge she's kind of changed my life and
I really want to know more about her so
I hope you will too I think it might
have been her own integrity that stopped
her from being more well known but in
her day she was incredibly active and
she really was all about the spirit of
freedom and taking action putting art
into activism she wasn't perfect but who
is she wrote about that you should write
anything that burns you and she really
was on fire so my inspiration from this
exhibition would be Kathleen Lonsdale
the chemistry that she focused in an
x-ray crystallography and the discovery
of benzene being a flat structure and
then having no problem to go to prison
because she was a pacifist and then
inspiring young girls to become
scientists these are all things that I
thought were you know aspirations for
today to encourage women understand but
now she was doing it years ago she was
amazing and she's exactly the kind of
woman I motivate the women featured in
this exhibition are just a fraction of
the trailblazing Irish women who
pioneered in their fields all over the
world it's like finding treasure every
day working in a project like her story
it's a real whoo
suppose a really special treat actually
to be working with the department fun
fairs and epic Museum who are dream to
work with it has been my privilege to
research these women and bring their
stories to you and I hope that you will
find their stories as inspirational as I
do
she really was so she's amazing
