Podcasts like Irish History Podcast

Muriel MacSwiney was an Irish republican and left-wing activist, and the first woman to be given the Freedom of New York City. She was the wife of Terence MacSwiney, mother of Máire MacSwiney Brugha and sister-in-law of Mary MacSwiney. The 1920 hunger strike of her husband Terence became an international cause célèbre, and following his death she became one of the most high profile Irish republican activists in the world, widely campaigning in the United States throughout the early 1920s. Following the defeat of the Anti-Treaty IRA in the Irish Civil War in 1923, Muriel never again lived in Ireland and instead embarked upon a bohemian life on the European continent. However, this led to a falling out with her daughter Máire, resulting in a bitter custody battle when Máire attempted to return to Ireland and ultimately total estrangement after 1934. MacSwiney spent most of the 1930s in Paris, France and from 1940 onwards lived in England, where she still occasionally involved herself in left-wing and republican causes.