AT our April meeting doctor R Sonja Tiernan from Liverpool Hope University talked about Eva Gore-Booth, Political pioneer. Eva Gore-Booth was an important campaigner for women's rights and a range of other social issues.

Much of her work was carried out in Manchester at the end of the 19th century.

She was born in Lissadell House in Sligo in 1870 in the very opulent background of a landowning family. Eva became aware of the contempt people felt for the landowners following the deaths and forced emigrations in the famine. Her sister Constance (later married to become Lady Markievicz) was more famous than Eva in some ways. She was the first elected British woman MP, but as a radical Fenian refused to take her seat. She became a Cabinet Minister in the Irish Government and the first Minister of Labour. Eva wrote poetry which W.B.Yeats admired. Due to delicate health, she was sent to Italy to recuperate where she met a Cheshire working class woman, Esther Roger, who helped to radicalise her on suffragette issues.

She then moved to what was at that time smog bound Manchester, living in Ancoats where at the time 40% of the population was Irish. Eva established a dramatic society for factory women. She then worked up to set up Trade Unions for women and spent days carrying out manual work in mines to demonstrate that women could do any sort of work. Much of her work was on behalf of what was then considered to be "morally risky" occupations such as bar maids. There was a strong temperance movement at the time to restrict the licensed trade, including a clause to ban women working as barmaids. Eva fought a brilliant and entertaining campaign to successfully oppose this clause. The campaign included defeating Winston Churchill, a Cabinet Minister at the time, who fought a bye-election in Manchester in 1908 and supported the legislation. This was an amazing success when women could not even vote.

In 1916, Eva was shaken by the consequences of the Easter Rising. Mass internment and executions followed and her sister Constance was sentenced to death. Eva campaigned on her behalf and the sentence was later commuted. She campaigned against the death sentence for Sir Roger Casement. Casement had landed on a German submarine with armaments for the Irish nationalists. Eva campaigned hard and at one stage it appeared she might be successful. Eventually, however, following a rather dubious campaign by the Government, she lost this campaign and Casement was executed.

Overall, though, she will be remembered for the important gains made through her political campaigns on women's and Trade Union rights and as a peace activist.