Adding women’s substantive role to narrative of the Rising

Pension details released by the military archives shows women played a wider role in the Rising than previously thought, says Sinead McCoole

AT most, we are five generations away from the women activists of 1916.

Yet many of them expressed opinions that make them seem more modern than women who lived 100 years ago. Indeed, some of them were more progressive in their outlook than some of the women in public life in the years that followed the founding of the Irish Free State.