Queen Victoria spoke in wondering terms about "the strange infection of feminism". It was just one more reason for radical activist Maud Gonne to dub her "the famine queen" and resist the authority of successive British governments.

Maud is known today as WB Yeats's muse but that's only one element to her action-packed life. An heiress and celebrated beauty, she used her wealth, fame and energy freely in support of evicted tenants and their families, and was a lifelong advocate for prisoners.

She is among a group of groundbreaking women fictionalised in my latest book, Truth & Dare, a collection of short stories intended to bring to life some of the extraordinary women who helped to shape modern Ireland.

Clever, steadfast and ambitious, they rejected the limitations of man-made rules designed to benefit men, especially of the ruling class. Instead, they asked an incendiary question for the times they lived in: why shouldn't we shape our own destiny - and create a fairer society in the process?

Maud (1866-1953) was born in Surrey in England, the daughter of a British army officer, and grew up partly in Ireland. In 1900, she founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), with a political, socialist and feminist agenda whose achievements included feeding school dinners to undernourished Dublin schoolchildren. She helped to set up the first women's newspaper, Bean na nÉireann - contributors included Countess Markievicz, who wrote a tongue-in-cheek gardening column - and in 1922 co-founded the Women's Prisoners' Defence League.

She had two children by her married French journalist lover, Lucien Millevoye, and later married Major John MacBride, executed after the Easter Rising. Their son, Seán MacBride, founded Amnesty International.

Yeats compared Maud to Speranza, an apt analogy because many of these women drew inspiration from each another. Dublin-born Speranza was Jane, Lady Wilde (1821-1896), a nationalist poet and mother to Oscar Wilde.

Her poetry was printed in The Nation and roused followers of the Young Ireland political movement. Speranza edited the newspaper in 1848 after its editor, George Gavan Duffy, was forced abroad.

An early feminist, she attended Ireland's first public meeting calling for the vote for women, in Dublin in 1870, and invited a well-known suffrage speaker to make an address at one of her crowded Merrion Square salons.

Later, she wrote articles arguing for female education, complaining about girls being reared for "husband worship" and calling for an all-female university. Another of her causes was the Rational Dress Movement campaigning against the clothes worn by women, which constricted their breathing and limited their movements.

Other trailblazers airbrushed from history include Mary Ann McCracken (1770-1886), sister of United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken. Have you spotted the parallels? If remembered it is as sisters, daughters and lovers, rather than for their own considerable achievements.

Belfast-born Mary Ann was a successful businesswoman who ran a muslin manufacturing company with her sister, giving much-needed employment; during lean years they absorbed losses rather than impose pay cuts or lay workers off.

She believed passionately in social justice and human dignity, arguing that people should be given the tools to better themselves. Her early campaigns included banning the use of children as chimney sweeps, reforming the prison system and helping to set up a school for orphans. In her 89th year, she handed out anti-slavery leaflets to emigrants at Belfast docks boarding US-bound ships.

Mary Ann followed political events closely and was involved in the United Irishmen through her brother, leader of the Northern army. After the 1798 rebellion's failure she tried to spirit him away. When he was captured she attended his court martial, later walking him to the gallows.

In a desperate bid to save him, she bribed the hangman to cut her brother down quickly and had the body carried home, where doctors attempted unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. Her courage and determination must have been a sight to behold.

Once you start digging into their stories there's a snowball effect - one woman guides the researcher to another. Cork's Nano Nagle risked her life to educate poor girls despite the Penal Laws and set up the Presentation order to continue her work. Anna Parnell, sister of Home Rule politician Charles Stewart Parnell, ran the Ladies' Land League which built shelters for homeless families and supported prisoners during the Land War. Maud Gonne admired her.

Dr Kathleen Lynn co-founded St Ultan's in Dublin, one of the first children's hospitals, and inoculated thousands of children against TB. She shared her life and work with a fellow 1916 revolutionary, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington struggled for the vote, lobbied against Éamon De Valera's notorious 'women-in-the-home' addition to the 1937 Constitution, and is regarded as the pre-eminent Irish feminist of the 20th century.

Countess Markievicz, born Constance Gore-Booth of Lissadell House in Sligo, is remembered as a 1916 revolutionary who escaped the death sentence. In fact, she was committed to the labour movement.

She was Minister for Labour in the first Dáil, which made her the world's second female minister (Soviet Russia had the first), and as she lay dying, refused to be moved to a private room. 'The people's countess' insisted on staying among them in a public ward. The Free State government refused her a state funeral but thousands of citizens lined the streets as her coffin passed, giving Constance a de facto state funeral.

Many of these women operated at an intense period of Irish history when three great movements were unfolding: nationalism, the struggle for the vote and labour rights. The possibilities must have seemed enormously exciting. But the reality was surely disappointing.

Why have such vibrant figures been submerged? It can be no coincidence they were sidelined by the authoritarian State which developed post-independence - one not representative of the community as a whole, either female or male.

What can be learned from the legacy of these pioneering women who became thinkers, writers, educators, lobbyists and politicians (when they could get elected, which didn't happen often)? That any group with power does not surrender it lightly. But by collaborating, being persistent and having faith in their capacity to effect change, women could chip away at opposition to equality. A lot done, more to do.

'Truth & Dare: Short Stories About Women Who Shaped Ireland' published by Poolbeg is out now, €10.49

Indo Review