Back in the limelight - the two suffragette playwrights who once shared centre stage in Ireland
These women were suffragettes with the Cork branch of the Munster Women's Franchise League (MWFL) and Susanne Day was one of the first women to be elected as a guardian on a Poor Law board - overseeing the management of the local workhouse.
Cummins was a daughter of Prof Ashley Cummins, MD (St Patrick's Place, Cork) and Day's father, Robert, was a city magistrate.
Cummins and Day co-wrote three cottage or 'peasant' plays, two of which, Broken Faith and Fox and Geese, were produced by the early Abbey Theatre in 1913 and 1917, respectively.
Neither woman subsequently pursued a career as dramatists - in fact, Cummins became a successful psychic medium and a published 'automatic' writer in that field. As a contribution to Cork 2005, I am mounting a one-day theatre history conference in UCC on December 2 on Munster women playwrights.
Historians from several Irish universities will present new research in women's theatre history. For this special year, and with the kind permission of the Cork Archive Institute, I am happy to present three performances of Fidelity, a 'recovered' one-act play by Cummins and Day. I would be particularly happy to make contact with any relatives of these playwrights and to extend an invitation for them to attend either event.
Velma O'Donoghue Greene
School of Drama and Theatre Studies
Trinity College
Dublin
email: megreene@tcd.ie
