BLAZING A TRAIL EXHIBITION
DATES: 4th - 18th January 2019
VENUE: EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, CHQ Custom House Quay,Dublin 1
‘Blazing a Trail: Lives and Legacies of Irish Diaspora Women’ is a new exhibition running at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum from 4th - 18th January 2019. It celebrates the lives and legacies of 21 pioneering Irish diaspora women of the 19th and 20th centuries who blazed a trail in a wide range of fields. The exhibition is a collaboration between EPIC, Herstory and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
On the 20th November, the eve of the centenary when women were first given the right to run for parliament, we launched 'Blazing a Trail', the first exhibition celebrating Irish diaspora women & the first women's exhibition to run in the Irish Embassy network. The exhibition marks the centenary of partial women’s suffrage, the right of Irish and British women to vote in elections. Individual Irishwomen across the globe struggled for their own professional recognition, and for justice and equality for others.
Some of the Irish women featured in ‘Blazing a Trail’ include designer and architect Eileen Gray; computer programming pioneer Kay McNulty; poet, mystic and trade unionist Eva Gore-Booth; tennis champion Mabel Cahill; medical missionary Sr Dr Maura Lynch; and ‘most dangerous woman in America’ Mother Jones. As part of the exhibition, Hungarian artist Szabolcs Kariko has created original portraits of several of the women.
Watch the ‘Blazing a Trail’ video, featuring Tara Flynn, Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, Dr Ciara Kelly and Dr Niamh Shaw picking their most influential figures from the exhibition:
Emigration offered many women access to education, careers and other opportunities that may not have been available in Ireland. These women made their mark across the globe, innovating in every field and paving the way for others to follow, navigating a male-dominated society on their own terms.
‘Blazing a Trail’ is free and open to the public at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in the CHQ Building from 12–25 November 2018 from 9.30am-6.30pm, returning from the 4th - 18th January 2019. The exhibition will then travel to Irish embassies around the world over the coming years.
