Women of independent mind, intelligence and resolution
Her victory, on the Marian Finucane poll, says interesting things about Irish society.
One determined elderly nun - the Presentation sister who nominated the founder of her congregation for the award - has managed a rebranding exercise worth millions.
In a matter of weeks, Nano Nagle went from an unknown (outside a small, diminishing circle) to a constantly Googled figure with unexpectedly contemporary appeal.
Here was a privileged woman who, educated in Paris when the Penal Laws prohibited Catholic education in Ireland, chose religious life rather than the comfortable marriage her dowry entitled her to.
Not only did she have an unprecedented vision of a nationwide education system for women, she had the determination and competence to make it happen.
Simultaneously devout and lawless, she was a relentless genius at getting recognition, permission and money out of the establishment.
No woman in modern times matches what Nano Nagle achieved. Recognising her as Ireland’s Greatest Woman may help establish that, long before feminism, a bunch of women in Ireland set up education (for girls) and healthcare (for everybody) when all the odds were stacked against them, including childcare - and they solved that problem by submerging their maternal yearnings for the common good. While it was not inevitable, or even likely, that Nano Nagle would win this award, it was absolutely inevitable that Mary Robinson would be in there with a fighting chance.
The former president imprinted a generation of Irishwomen in much the same way as the JFK administration imprinted a generation of Americans.
Partly because of her minimal public involvement in Irish life, post-presidency, Mary Robinson has become a revered but oddly distant figure, a reference point rather than a human reality, a genuine example of that much-cheapened term, icon.
The top three women couldn’t be more different from each other. Or more alike. They share independent-mindedness, intelligence and resolution.
None traded on their femininity or sexuality, indeed all three are oddly asexual. None allowed their gender to be used against them. None sold their gender down the river, either.
At the same time, this poll also demonstrates the likely age and gender of the majority of the voters: they are not the audience that wants to see Kerry Katona looking sexy while eating stewed grasshoppers.
Michelle Smith coming third may signify denial on the part of those who believe her cheating happened after the Olympics, or that she’d have won, with or without forbidden drugs.
It may signify that even cheating can’t take away the one brief shining moment when a nation rose to a smiling big-shouldered girl with an aureole of yellow hair, holding up a cluster of medals.
It may even signify admiration for a woman destroyed by fame and ambition, who picks herself up, goes back to studying, and recreates herself in anonymity. Because there’s a greatness in that, too.
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