The Changemakers: Cork champion of the underdog, Maureen Curtis Black

Clodagh Finn recalls a woman who campaigned for widows’ rights, set up the first Citizens’ Advice Bureau in Cork and supported the legal battle to introduce free legal aid in civil cases

Maureen Curtis Black campaigned for widows’ rights, founded the first Citizens’ Advice Bureau, in Cork, and offered vital support to fellow Corkwoman Josie Airey during her seven-year fight to secure free legal aid in civil cases in Ireland.

When Maureen Curtis Black died on January 18, 1999, six women carried her coffin as a mark of respect for a pioneer who campaigned all of her life to give ordinary people a voice. One of those pallbearers, historian Sandra McAvoy, recalls: “I think we were all so proud to make that final statement: To say that final thank you for her long fight, for her friendship, for her unflinching personal support to so many people; and we were saying, Maureen, we revere you.”

Her long fight and her commitment to equality meant she was held in high esteem by many. She campaigned for widows’ rights, founded the first Citizens’ Advice Bureau, in Cork, and offered vital support to fellow Corkwoman Josie Airey during her seven-year fight to secure free legal aid in civil cases in Ireland. Black also fought for social reform and, although a devout Catholic, warned that writing an amendment into the Constitution which put women and the unborn on an equal footing, would put women’s health at risk. “But then,” as she wrote in an incisive, hard-hitting piece in this paper in 1983, “it is only women who are at risk — and women, especially married women, don’t count in Ireland.”