On Saturday the 23rd of November, Republicans and Socialists gathered in Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery to remember Winifred Carney, a member of the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan.

Chaired by Republican ex-Prisoner Pádraic Mac Coitir, the event was addressed by Martine Jackson, a member of the Lasair Dhearg Commemoration Committee. The full text of her speech is below:

“We stand here today to commemorate Winifred Carney – a feminist, a socialist, and most of all: a
Republican.

“Born on the 4 th December 1887 into a middle class Catholic and Protestant family in Bangor, County
Down. The family moved to Falls Road in Belfast, where Carney would be raised by her single
mother, and would be educated at the Christian Brothers School in Donegall Street, not far from
here.

“Carney enrolled at Hughes Commercial Academy in 1910, where she qualified as a secretary and
shorthand typist, one of the first women in Belfast to do so.

“The following year Winifred Carney alongside Delia Larkin founded the Irish Textile Workers’ Union
in Belfast, a sister body to Connolly and Larkins Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. By 1912
she would come to lead the I.T.W.U as its secretary, and work to win women into the ranks of the
union. It was in this position that Carney finally met James Connolly.

“Carney would become Connolly’s friend and confidant as they worked together to improve the
conditions for female labourers in Belfast, organising for rights and suffrage among female factory
labourers. Together they co-wrote the Manifesto to the Linen Slaves of Belfast.
She was instrumental in fundraising for the striking workers of the 1913 Dublin Lock-out, and in 1914
would be one of ten founding members of Cumann na mBan within which she gained reputation as a
proficient sharpshooter and first aider.

“By 1916, as the Easter Rising was being prepared, Winnie, now aged 29, was Connollyʼs personal
secretary and held the rank of Adjutant in the Irish Citizen Army. It has been said that she was the
only person from whom Connolly had no secrets.

“When Liam Mellows escaped from detention in England and was smuggled back to Ireland to lead
the Rising in the West of Ireland, it was Winnie who accompanied him on the trip from Belfast to
Dublin. On Easter Saturday night, Winnie stayed all night at Liberty Hall preparing mobilisation
orders and officersʼ commissions for the ICA. When she reported in again at 8am on Easter Monday,
her first job was to type out the mobilisation orders for the four city battalions of what was now the
unified Army of the Irish Republic. At noon, the ICA formed in ranks outside Liberty Hall. Carney’s
place was at the front with James Connolly when it marched off. She was the only woman who took
part in the initial occupation of the GPO.

“Present during Pearse’s proclamation of an Irish Republic, she would enter the GPO armed with a
typewriter under one arm, and a Webley revolver in her hand. After Connolly became wounded, she
refused to leave his side. When Pearse ordered that all women and wounded should leave – she
refused. Carney, alongside Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grenan, left the GPO with the rest of the
rebels when the building became engulfed in flames.

“Having retreated to a new headquarters in nearby Moore Street, when the time came to
surrender, they filed out behind a white flag. Connolly had suggested to Winnie that she remove
her military belt so that she could not easily be identified as a combatant; Carney’s response was
to write her name on the belt and continue wearing it.

“Following the rising she was interned within both Kilmainham Gaol and Mountjoy prison, before
being deported to Aylesbury prison in England alongside Helena Molony and other female
Republicans. Whilst Countess Markievicz was held as a convicted prisoner, Carney and others held
internee status. In an effort to join Markievicz, Carney and her fellow internees requested to be
treated as criminals and forgo all it benefits in order to end the Countess’s isolation. Their request
was denied. Carney was eventually released Christmas eve 1916.

“After her release from prison on 24 December 1916, Winnie found it hard to settle into routine trade
union affairs although she continued to work for the ITGWU in both Belfast and Dublin. Throughout
her life, she refused to romanticise the Rising or trade on her relationship with Connolly. She
remained committed to her principles and always argued that the Rising had been the right thing to
do under circumstances.

“In 1918 general election, Carney stood unsuccessfully for Sinn Féin on a Socialist Republican
platform in east Belfast. She was one of only 2 female candidates in the entire election.
During the War for Independence, Carney was Secretary of the Irish Republican Prisoners
Dependentsʼ Fund, a role she would continue to perform during the Irish Civil War. After the Anglo-
Irish Treaty, Carney sided with the Anti-Treaty forces and was arrested several times. In July 1922,
her home in Carlisle Circus was raided by the B-Specials, who seized books which allegedly
demonstrated “her connection with Bolshevism” and documents proving her role within the IRA.

“Carney was imprisoned in Armagh jail wherein she immediately initiated protest against her
internment without trial and criminal status. She was finally released on the grounds of ill-health.
Following the Civil War Carney was an outspoken critic of Éamon de Valera and his governments.
She remained active within revolutionary socialist and republican groups across Belfast which faced
attacks from both unionist gangs like the ‘Dawson Bates Drumming clubs’ and the might of the
catholic Church.

“It was within this period of agitation that she would be meet her future partner William McBride, an
ex-Ulster volunteer and Orangeman, with whom she would spend the rest of her life organising with.
Winifred Carney died November 1943. In her lifetime, she had served as secretary of a pioneering
trade union, participated in the Easter Rising, become the first woman to stand in a parliamentary
election in Belfast and been imprisoned on multiple occasions for her socialist and republican
beliefs. At the time of her passing, she was remembered in the pages of Labour newspaper ‘The
Torch’ as someone who was ‘deep and loyal in her friendships and in her allegiances, political as
well as personal.’

“For Republicans who remember her today let her life reminds us that our struggle must be truly
Republican. Concerned not with unification, but with liberation.

With the liberation of women. With the liberation of our class. With the liberation of the entire
Island from all alien occupations – British and European. Imperialism: whether red, white and blue,
or blue & gold stands to inhibit the Socialist Republican objective: ‘the right of the people of Ireland to
the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies’.”