Sixty years ago next Sunday, on June 27th 1939, Kathleen Daly Clarke was elected the first woman Lord Mayor of Dublin. No woman had been elected to any mayoralty in Ireland before, so the event caused great excitement. She was 61, a widow, and mother of three sons.

Limerick-born Kathleen Clarke represented the old republican Ireland. Her husband, Tom, was one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, and she had entered politics to carry on his legacy. A founder member of Fianna Fail, she had been a TD from 1927 to 1928, a Senator from 1928 to 1936, and a Dublin councillor since 1930. She had clashed with Eamon de Valera over some of the "anti-women" aspects of the 1937 Constitution.

Rejected chain

Her first action as Lord Mayor was to reject the Lord Mayor's chain, because it had been presented to the city by William of Orange. A smaller chain, the City Chain, was hastily produced. Next day, the women's correspondents swung into action. Kitty Clive of The Irish Times wrote: "Mrs Clarke. . .has always been active in taking up women's questions...She will have the good wishes of all women in the country and their support in her new exalted position." Mrs Clarke told the Irish Press: "I am terribly keen on the fact that women, if given the opportunity, could do as well in positions in public life as the men." Gertrude Gaffney, in the Irish Independent, said: "The women of the country look to her to maintain the average housewife's reputation for canny and discriminating administration of affairs. . ." She was also interviewed by the Evening Herald and Evening Mail ("wearing a light blue tweed redingote over a patterned frock, her black hat. . .trimmed with pale blue flowers").

Congratulations poured in from all over the country and from many Irish-American groups. For one commentator her republican background and connections with 1916 (her brother Edward Daly had also been executed) gave rise to hopes that the domination of Ireland by moneyed elites and the civil service would now be challenged. The Dublin Port and Docks Board welcomed its first woman member in her new official capacity. Quidnunc of The Irish Times suggested the need for a new title for mayor, on the lines of Taoiseach or Uachtarain, which did not alter with the sex of the holder. She brushed aside comments such as that of a member of Athy Urban Council, who pronounced that ladies on public bodies were the curse of the country.

Portrait of queen

The Clarke family crest was hung in City Hall with other mayoral arms, and was apparently the first with a motto in Irish: "Siothchain de bheirim chughaibh" ("I bring you peace"). But peace was not the dominant note of her mayoralty. Moving into the Mansion House on July 19th, she removed a portrait of Queen Victoria which had hung in the hall, as well as other royal portraits (they were placed in storage). Dublin ratepayers were outraged at this treatment of "their" property. Letters appeared in the newspapers from "Patriotic Anti-Fanatic", "A Southern Loyalist", "A Ratepayer", "Another Ratepayer", "Plain Citizen" and "One Who Is Pained".

Mrs Clarke was accused of having a "pettish, schoolgirl mentality", but said she was following the example of her Fenian uncle John Daly who, as Mayor of Limerick in 1898-99, had removed the royal coat of arms from Limerick Town Hall. In her defence, the Irish News jeered that "art is being used by the inartistic as a new weapon of attack. . ."

Her press-cutting album is full of meetings, speeches, presentations, prize-givings, trips to the theatre ("Her long white evening gloves toned with her well-groomed marquise coiffure") and countless newspaper interviews, national and international. The first signature in her visitors' book was that Eamon de Valera, to be followed by film stars Valerie Hobson and Gene Autry. A long illness after an operation in March, 1940 reduced her activities, but she was re-elected on July 24th by 24 votes to seven.

Her mayoralty was, of course, rapidly overtaken by the second World War (the "Emergency"). She was president of the Irish Red Cross, headed appeals for charities and hospitals, and supported a Mansion House coal fund. She approved of Ireland's neutrality, and seems to have opposed the sending of fire engines north when Belfast was bombed, worried that de Valera was leaning dangerously towards the British side.

Lowered Flag

She never compromised her republican stance, and often clashed with her own party. She opposed the military courts set up to try IRA prisoners, and pleaded for mercy for Patrick McGrath, sentenced to death for involvement in the death of a policeman. On the day of his execution, she lowered the flag on the Mansion House to half-mast, a very public repudiation of the government's policies. She was a leader in the unsuccessful campaign to reprieve Barnes and McCormick, IRA members whose bomb had murdered five people in Coventry.

In June 1941, she announced that she would not seek re-election. She resigned from Fianna Fail, and left politics. Although frequently in poor health, she lived an active life until her death in September 1972, aged 94, at the home of her son, Dr Emmet Clarke (who survives her). She was given a State funeral. Her autobiography, Revolutionary Woman: My Fight for Ireland's Freedom, is available from O'Brien Press.

Helen Litton will give a talk on Kathleen Clarke in the Dublin Civic Museum, South William Street, next Saturday at 3 p.m.