Sighle Humphreys

Sighle Humphreys was an Irish political activist and member of Cumann na mBan.

Humphreys was deeply involved in the republican cause. She served as as secretary, director of publicity, and national vice-president of Sinn Féin. She was on the committee of the Irish Volunteer Dependants' Fund after the Rising. She was engaged in finding safe-houses for those on the run, including using her family home at 36 Ailesbury Road as an IRA safe house throughout the War of Independence.

When Ernie O'Malley was captured at the Humphreys home in 1922, Sighle was one of those imprisoned. She was put in solitary confinement and went on hunger strike in protest. She went on a further hunger-strike, this time for 31 days, when she was among the prisoners confined after the end of the Civil War in May 1923. She was finally released on 29 November 1923.

Humphreys continued her involvement with Cumann na mBan after the Civil War, contributing significantly to the republican movement throughout the 1920s and 1930s. She became the Cumann representative on the Republican Council in 1929. She was in Mountjoy Jail in 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1931. In 1928 she went on a six-day hunger strike, and was designated as a political prisoner. Despite her affluent background, Humphreys was active in the socialist republican organisation Saor Éire, serving as the group's co-treasurer from 1931. In 1934 she resigned the Republican Congress, but her Sinn Féin principles were more important, as they had criticized the IRA.

She tried to keep Cumann going on the president's resignation, and in 1941 she briefly served as Cumann na mBan's president. She served as President of the St Vincent de Paul Society (1937-1975), and also the Political Prisoners Committee until 1949. Her causes continued to be consistently those of Sinn Féin: Anti-EEC, and very strongly Catholic, promoting the Mass on television, all in the Irish Language.

• Wikipedia: Sighle Humphreys