Clodagh Finn: Remembering the first female envoy who paved the way in foreign affairs

Josephine McNeill opens an exhibition of Irish paintings at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, with the city’s Mayor Arnold Jan d'Ailly. Picture: Elsevier Photo collection courtesy of Nationaal Archief/Anefo  

When Cork-born Josephine McNeill became the first Irish woman to head a diplomatic mission abroad in 1949, she might have thought an Irish female foreign minister could not be far behind.

Then again, perhaps not, because she once commented in a letter to Seán Nunan, secretary for external affairs, that “the special combination of qualities and experience desirable in diplomacy is less frequently to be found in women than in men”.