Helena Molony

Helena Molony was a prominent Irish republican, feminist and labour activist. She fought in the 1916 Easter Rising and later became the second woman president of the Irish Trade Union Congress.Source: Wikipedia

Helena Moloney

Molony was a prominent member of Cumann na mBan ("Women's League"), a republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers. Members of Cumann na mBan trained alongside the men of the Irish Volunteers in preparation for the armed rebellion against the English forces in Ireland.

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Molony was one of the Citizen Army soldiers who attacked Dublin Castle. During the attack her commanding officer, Seán Connolly was killed, and Molony was captured and imprisoned until December 1916.

After the Irish Civil War, Molony became the first woman president of the Irish Trade Union Congress. She remained active in the republican cause during the 1930s, particularly with the Women's Prisoner's Defense League and the People's Rights Association.

She retired from public life in 1946, but continued to work for women's labour rights; she died in Dublin in 1967.