Terry Prone: Gemma Hussey was a true pioneer of women's rights in Ireland

'It’s not an insult to have the struggle forgotten,' she once said. 'It’s a triumph that this generation of women can take their rights for granted.'

Gemma Hussey with Michael Noonan and Liam Kavanagh of Labour, in Áras an Uachtaráin in 1986. she served as Minister for Education, and also held the Social Welfare and Labour portfolios. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

She dropped her eyes from the black and white TV screen when her image appeared on it, until the Media Skills trainer told her she wouldn’t learn unless she watched herself. What she and all the group saw was a smartly dressed woman in her thirties, with diction as crisp as a snapped biscuit, articulating a new vision of what women in Ireland could be.

Gemma Hussey was one of seven women, all members of the Women’s Political Association, who had decided that they needed to come to terms with the relatively new medium of television, in the 1970s. They wanted women to play a bigger part in Irish life, and they knew public persuasion would be key to achieving it.