After the Train shines a light of neglected truth on the history of how Ireland was changed
The vast accomplishments of modern Irish feminism would look very different without the courageous, yet often overlooked, efforts of Irishwomen United activists in the years following the Contraceptive Train. This phenomenal collection of twenty essays offers first-hand, historical accounts of on-the-ground activities during this period, shining a light of neglected truth on the history of how Ireland was changed. In this book, writer and IWU member Evelyn Conlon together with academic Rebecca Pelan, ensure the impact of the organisation will no longer be forgotten.
Feminist Publishing
by Dr Rebecca Pelan
After the Train consists of twenty essays, ten by women who were members of Irishwomen United (IWU), including co-editor Evelyn Conlon, and others by women involved in a network of issues and services of importance, including single-parenting, crisis pregnancy, rape crisis, women’s health, and women’s studies.
One of the more prominent topics in the collection, however, is the history of women’s incursion into the world of mainstream publishing in Ireland, which resulted in a proliferation of creative and political output since the 1980s. Six of the book’s contributors are published authors, three of whom are members of Aosdána. In addition, four more have been directly involved in the development of women’s and community publishing, testimony to the important role of women’s creative pursuits in the politics of changing Ireland.
One of the more prominent topics in the collection is the history of women’s incursion into the world of mainstream publishing in Ireland
IWU grew from a series of meetings, held in April 1975 in the International Bar on Wicklow Street, Dublin, when a small number of women first discussed the idea of a Charter. This was followed by a day-long conference in Liberty Hall, Dublin, on 8 June 1975, during which the name Irishwomen United, along with a Charter, sub-titled ‘Irishwomen United – Sisterhood is Powerful’, were agreed. The Charter appeared on the back page of every issue of Banshee, IWU’s journal, facilitating the consistent and regular distribution of the group’s demands.
Banshee itself represents one of the earliest examples of women’s publishing in Ireland, with many of the IWU women finding themselves writing and reporting on a broad range of topics and campaigns on a regular basis. The journal reflects the larger ethos of IWU itself, whereby liberal, radical, and socialist feminist perspectives co-existed, without editorial intervention, just as seriously diverse political ideologies lived side-by-side within the larger group. For just over two years (1975-1977), IWU and Banshee operated as collectives, with the specific aim of improving the lives of women in Ireland, and the achievements of the group were extraordinary, with much of its success being aided by Banshee.
For just over two years (1975-1977), IWU and Banshee operated as collectives, with the specific aim of improving the lives of women in Ireland
1975 was also the year of the establishment of Ireland’s first ‘women’s press’ when Catherine Rose published her own book, The Female Experience: The Story of the Woman Movement in Ireland, marking the birth of Arlen House. Mary Rose Callaghan’s essay, ‘Arlen House: A Pioneer of Irish Publishing’, provides a fascinating insight into Arlen’s beginnings and continued success. Consistently, Arlen aimed to promote new and classic fiction by Irish women in an effort to address their very evident neglect. Between 1980 and 1987, inspired by London’s Virago Press, Arlen began reprinting novels by Kate O’Brien, Janet McNeil, Anne Crone, Norah Hoult and others, which were well-received.
In 1978 Arlen House launched a short story competition for Irish women, sponsored by Maxwell House Coffee. There was one overall winner in the competition, ‘The Wall Reader’ by Fiona Barr set in ‘the Troubles’, and the rest were equally placed. Picked from over 1,000 submissions from all over Ireland, they were published as The Wall Reader, a thin paperback, which became an unexpected best-seller. Subsequent Maxwell House competitions included poetry as well as short stories. In 1981, Arlen announced a Women’s Literary Competition bursary for women writers, including women in prison, and founded the Women’s Education Bureau (WEB), which ran workshops for aspiring writers, facilitated by established writers. These competitions and the WEB represented the start of a writing career for many Irish writers.
Arlen aimed to promote new and classic fiction by Irish women in an effort to address their very evident neglect
‘Remembering Feminist Publishing of the 1980s’ by Mary Flanagan and Marianne Hendron, provides a fascinating account of a centrally important phase of women’s publishing in Ireland, starting in 1978, when Róisín Conroy and Mary Doran founded Irish Feminist Information (IFI), aimed at making information more widely available, including information on women’s health, and on rights and entitlements. With Patricia Kelleher, Róisín extended this project to training for women in publishing, and they achieved this via an ingenious move when the government, in response to unemployment, established AnCo as a training agency, including the provision of training for women in ‘non-traditional occupations’. Róisín and Patricia successfully made the case for publishing as a non-traditional area for women, as well as demonstrating their capacity to deliver such a course, and the Women in Community Publishing (WiCP) training course was established. This paved the way for the later setting up of Women’s Community Press (WCP).
IFI and WiCP existed as worker co-operatives with non-hierarchal structures and an ethos of inclusion, particularly to those who were marginalised. Its publications reflected this ethos, covering working-class women’s writing, reflections of feminist activists of the time, lesbian and gay men’s experiences, and heroin as a human, rather than criminal, issue. In 1986, WCP, in partnership with the Dublin Lesbian and Gay Men’s Collectives, published the first book written entirely by lesbians and gay men to be published in Ireland, Out for Ourselves: The Lives of Irish Lesbians and Gay Men.
WCP also played a significant role in training and skill-sharing, especially in disadvantaged communities
WCP also played a significant role in training and skill-sharing, especially in disadvantaged communities, by documenting and recording lived experiences. Collaborations with community-based groups such as the Kilbarrack Local Education for Adult Renewal (KLEAR), vocational education programmes at Mountjoy and Arbour Hill Prisons, as well as Focus Point homelessness service, produced a number of life-experience publications. Links were also forged with community writing groups around Ireland, leading to publications such as the WiCP book, If You Can Talk You Can Write, published in conjunction with the Women’s Writing Group in Kilbarrack in 1983.
Write Up Your Street was the first independent collection of material from a number of burgeoning writing groups, as part of the development of community writing, literacy, and local publishing. Flanagan and Hendron argue that WCP operated in a zone between public and private sectors, attempting to operate and, indeed, compete in a commercial sphere. But the concepts of not-for-profit businesses and social enterprise were not the norm, not well understood or supported, yet it was crucial that WCP’s structure reflected an ethos of inclusion and non-hierarchy. The solution lay in the resurgent Irish co-operative movement.
Mary Paul Keane’s personal journey in the world of feminist publishing is the subject of her essay, ‘Attic Press: A Reflection’, which begins with Irish Feminist Information (IFI) and the Women in Publishing Network (WiPN), and continues through to the establishment of Attic Press in the autumn of 1984.
Attic titles number in the hundreds, and many have become classics of Irish Studies and women’s studies
AnCo funding was awarded to IFI for two years, for the purpose of running a full-time, nine-month long Women in Community Publishing (WiCP) programme each year. When the funding ceased, forty women had been trained in the art and skills of community publishing, and many had started work in the publishing industry using skills learned in the programme. In 1984, Róisín and Mary Paul decided to establish a radical women’s press that would provide a serious challenge to mainstream publishing, and Attic Press was born. News that the Arts Council would provide significant financial support for the publishing of fiction led to Attic publishing contemporary women’s fiction and the rest is history. Attic titles number in the hundreds, and many have become classics of Irish Studies and women’s studies.
Individually and collectively, the essays in After the Train that focus on the development of women’s publishing in Ireland not only paint an extraordinary picture of a journey, begun in 1975 and continuing to the present, but make clear the level of success achieved by women in disrupting and changing the face of publishing in this country.
* After the Train is published by UCD Press. The Press publishes widely on feminist subjects and looks at all new proposals with a strong feminist lens. UCD Press encourages more proposals that will further diversify their list to represent new and emerging voices.
