'Inner strength' theme at Women's Day lunch in Kilcullen

Maria Walsh MEP, Minister of State Martin Heydon, and Cllr Tracey O'Dwyer at the Women's Day lunch.

The inner strength of women is graphically shown at the moment by the women and children crossing the border from Ukraine, those at a Women's Day lunch on Sunday in Kilcullen heard, writes Brian Byrne.

Saying that Women's Day couldn't be happening at a more poignant time, lunch organiser Cllr Tracey O'Dwyer noted that it is the women who are getting their families across and 'trying to keep everything together'. “Unfortunately the men have to stay, and it just shows the inner strength of women, that we can deliver and we can do it,” she added. “As can everybody in this room today.”

The event in Fallons was attended by around 70 women from the Kilcullen area, and referencing the pandemic, Cllr O'Dwyer noted that the last two years have been tough particularly for women. “I'm not saying it wasn't tough for everybody else, but we were doing the home schooling, we were maybe doing a job, and we were trying to keep the family going. And, it's maybe a natural thing for women, we were taking on the emotional support of our families, gauging how they were doing, how they were feeling — that's a huge job in itself.”

Among the problems faced were the anxieties around children going back to school — about wearing masks, then about not wearing them — and about not being the one that brought Covid into their own families, with the result that 'there's a whole level of stuff there that nobody sees going on in our heads'. “I don't think we just multitask, I think we double- and triple-job, and just get on with it.”

The lunch was a fundraiser for St Brigid's Hospice on The Curragh, and Cllr O'Dwyer particularly praised the staff there who, like other healthcare workers, made the decision to isolate from their families. “They looked after other people in their homes, putting themselves at risk going in. And that's something we all remember, helping with the last days.”

MEP Maria Walsh was a special guest at the lunch, and she spoke about how becoming involved with 'a small festival called the Rose of Tralee' had given her both a podium for her voice and the confidence to use that voice. She encouraged women to become more involved in politics, acknowledging that not everyone wanted to become candidates. “There are many other avenues,” she said. “There are women who want to be candidates, but there are a hell of a lot more who want to work in the background, knocking on doors, helping to prepare candidates for events like going on radio programmes.”

Commenting on the importance of 'showing solidarity' she made reference to the Irish tradition of meitheal, of community spirit, and said that she believes women are at the forefront of that.

With mental health as another of her concerns, she said women need to champion 'changing the narrative' around the issue. "We have a legacy of having stigmatised mental health. We desperately need to change the lived experience of it, and as emotive beings the energy around a woman is a powerful skill that we have."

Noting that it is 50 years since Ireland joined what is now the EU, she recalled that one of the successes of membership for women was the elimination of the marriage bar, where women were forced to leave their jobs and enter the ‘inner job’ of raising a family, which her mother described as one of the hardest, unpaying, most unforgiving jobs. "Being a parent in the home and keeping a hell of a lot of other things going outside of just rearing children. By the removal of that we entered into a movement of equality. We are now debating at a national level on the matter of equal pay for equal work. Right now across the EU, its about 14pc in the difference  … and that’s the equivalent of about 50 extra days that women work in various sectors through the year. Where I see the fundamental problem, by the time a female reaches retiring age, the pension gap has jumped to 30pc."

Minister of State Martin Heydon spoke briefly at the lunch. He said he was proud to have been part of a Government that has made changes in parental leave, and brought more women into politics. "I wasn’t sure about quotas at the start," he commented on that last, "but it does take that kind of change to make a structural discussion happen at the top end of a party. By making those changes it does bring about real positivity."

In his role at the Department of Agriculture, he spoke of changes made specifically about the role of women in farming, some already in place and others which need to be implemented. "In 95pc of farming families, the woman is an active partner in the farming enterprise. But her name doesn't appear as part of the farm. It's not on the herd number. She is not recognised by the Department of Agriculture. At pension time, all she can expect is a non-contributory pension, which depends on their means. What kind of a message does that send out to women?"

The Minister noted that significant incentives are now being brought in to ensure that farmers will now look at equal partnerships that will adequately reflect the work that the woman of the house has put in.

READ: After two years, back together again for Women's Day lunch 

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