Afri will once again begin our calendar year with an informal gathering at the bench in Stephens Green commemorating Louie Bennett and her companion Helen Chevenix. All are welcome to meet there at 1 pm on her birthday, on Sunday, 7th January.
In the dark days of winter, in an ever-darker world of destruction and vengeance, Louie Bennett reminds us of a life lived well through often equally appalling times.
She worked for peace throughout World War I with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). From a Church of Ireland background, she ardently pursued Irish freedom whilst unapologetically warning her fellow leaders against militarism and violence.
A champion of women’s suffrage, she was a founder of the Irish Women Workers’ Union, and the first woman elected President of the Irish Trades Union Congress.
In the 1950s she confronted the pressures of the Cold War, stoutly defending neutrality and peaceful conflict resolution just as we need to do today. She would have no truck with Official Ireland’s mythical Island of Saints and Soldiers: she made Brigid Patron of the IWWU, and named her home after the woman who sold her father’s sword to feed the dispossessed.
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