Kilmainham Gaol (1796-1924) (Irish: Príosún Chill Mhaighneann) is a former prison in Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland. It is now a museum run by the Office of Public Works, an agency of the Government of Ireland. Many Irish revolutionaries, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, were imprisoned and executed in the prison by the British. At Kilmainham the poor conditions in which women prisoners were kept provided the spur for the next stage of development. As early as his 1809 report the Inspector had observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females 'lay on straw on the flags in the cells and common halls.' Half a century later there was little improvement. The women's section, located in the west wing, remained overcrowded. In an attempt to relieve the overcrowding 30 female cells were added to the Gaol in 1840. These improvements had not been made long before the Great Famine occurred, and Kilmainham was overwhelmed with the increase of prisoners. Kilmainham Gaol is one of the biggest unoccupied prisons in Europe. Now empty of prisoners, it is filled with history. This book, published by the Government of Ireland, specifically covers the women revolutionaries that were incarcerated here between 1916 - 1923.

Guns & chiffon: Women revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol, 1916-1923

McCoole, Sinéad

Stationery Office Books

New edition. Spies, snipers, couriers, gun-runners, medics, women played a major role in the fight for Ireland's freedom, risking loss of life and family for a cause to which they were totally committed. This book highlights a time when vast numbers of Irish women were politicised and imprisoned for their beliefs, with a special emphasis on one prison, Kilmainham Gaol.They came from every class in society and all walks of life: titled ladies and shop assistants, doctors, housewives, laundry workers, artists and teachers. Some were married with children, others widowed and some mere schoolchildren. These are hidden stories that vividly recreate the characters, personalities and courage of Ireland's revolutionary women.

No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years 1900-1923

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

OʼBrien Press

Lady Lavery has been remembered for the numerous portraits by her husband, the painter Sir John Lavery, celebrated in 'The Municipal Gallery Re-visited' by W.B. Yeats.This first biography of Hazel, first published in 1996 and now reissued, tells the story of how a girl from boomtown Chicago became one of the most stylish society hostesses in London, turning her husband's studio into a hub of Anglo-Irish diplomacy, from the 1921 Treaty negotiations through the tumultuous early years of the Irish Free State. Using hitherto-unpublished letters and scrapbooks, Sinead McCoole gives a vivid account of Hazel's artistic and political preoccupations, and of her extraordinary effect upon the male politicians of Ireland and Britain, for whom she and her salon represented common ground.Romance and politics converged in her relationships with two hard men of nationalist Ireland who each met violent deaths, Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins, whose passionate letters to Hazel reveal the inner man beneath the political carapace.Hazel also forged durable alliances with the pillars of British government - Winston Churchill, Ramsay MacDonald and Lord Londonderry among others - while relishing friendships with leading writers of the day such as G. B. Shaw, J.M. Barrie, Lennox Robinson and Evelyn Waugh.This lavishly illustrated, richly documented life of Lady Lavery relates how one beautiful American woman reinvented herself as 'a simple Irish girl' and came to personify Eire on Ireland's banknotes, 'living and dying ...as though some ballad-singer had sung it all'.

Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935

Leaders & Notable People

The Lilliput Press

This biography tells the story of Hazel Lavery, one of London's most influential and beautiful women in the 1920s, a popular society hostess and fervent supporter of Ireland's independence. It details her birth into a wealthy Chicago family, her study of art and her marriage to the artist John Lavery, 24 years her senior. It goes on to examine the Laverys' life in London, where they became popular and entertained many celebrated figures, including Asquith, Bernard Shaw, Churchill, T.P. O'Connor, Beresford, and Shane Leslie, and later by Ramsey MacDonald and Evelyn Waugh. The work chronicles Hazel's assistance of the Irish national cause, using her house in London to play informal host to the Anglo-Irish Conference (1921). By the time of Hazel's death in 1935, the diplomatic links which she had fought to establish had been dismantled by de Valera, and she died believing her life had been utterly without purpose. This biography reveals the restless life of Hazel Lavery to be a pioneering one, drawing on interviews with her acquaintances and her daughter, Alice, and a cache of private correspondence and scrapbooks.

Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery, 1880-1935

Historical

Dufour Editions

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Books by McCoole, Sinéad

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McCoole, Sinéad. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Guns & chiffon: Women revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol, 1916-1923

No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years 1900-1923

Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935

Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery, 1880-1935