Helena Molony : Short Biography

Helena Molony was born in Dublin on January 15^th 1883 to Catherine McGrath and Michael Molony.  She was orphaned early in her life and did not get along with her step-mother.  In 1903 she saw and heard Maud Gonne give a speech and was inspired.

Molony joined Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), which was one of the few organisations to facilitate political engagement by women, who were denied the vote and excluded from most political organisations.  She became the editor of Inghinidhe na hÉireann’s monthly paper, Bean na hÉireann (Woman of Ireland).  This provided an influential propaganda outlet:  “it was a funny hotch-potch of blood and thunder, high thinking and homemade bread.  We were the object of much good-natured chaff.  Friendly newsagents would say “Bean na hÉireann”?  That’s the woman’s paper all the young men buy”.  Molony was pro suffrage but clashed publicly with feminists who, in her opinion, put gender before nationality. 

She became the first Irish female political prisoner of her generation after smashing a portrait of George V during the monarch’s visit to Ireland.  Her bail was paid by Anna Parnell and at a demonstration following her release, she was delighted to be arrested again for denouncing George V as a scoundrel. 

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Molony was one of the Citizen Army soldiers who attacked Dublin Castle.  After the Irish Civil Was she became the second president of the Irish Trade Union Congress.

Molony retired from public life in 1946 but continued to work for women’s labour rights.  She died in Dublin in 1967.

Picture:  Stories from 1916

Sources:  History of Ireland, Stories from 1916, The Irish Times