THEY say never meet your heroes. And that may well be true in many cases, but I have been lucky to come to know one lifetime hero who has surpassed my hopes for what she might be.
This week Ailbhe Smyth marked her 80th birthday. Which is extraordinary, as she is genuinely as fresh as a daisy while also modern Ireland’s conscience and guiding light for social justice.
I first saw her speak when I was a lost student at UCD studying History and English. My experience in college is summed up by my first day when I sat in a huge lecture theatre, aged 17, having taken two buses to get there from the suburbs of Dublin 24. We were asked us to introduce ourselves to the people beside us. I turned left and the young woman, dressed in brand new Levi's and Ralph Lauren shirt and jumper, said, "I’m Fiona from Foxrock." I, dressed in Dunnes jeans and Penneys top replied, "I’m Andrée, from Tallaght." Fiona burst out laughing and said, "No, really, where are you from?" And that was it. I never really recovered.
Apart from when I walked into Dr Margaret MacCurtain’s room for tutorials. This Dominican nun saw me and encouraged me to embrace who I was. She opened up the world of the hidden histories of women, teaching me how power and privilege work. She would make time for me in her little room, which became an oasis of care and learning.
My friend, also from Tallaght, also feeling similarly "other", told me about her French lecturer. "She is brilliant, come listen to her talk," she said. I was a bit late for Ailbhe Smyth in full flow: "If you want to know how endemic the patriarchal power structures are, look at how Dr Margaret MacCurtain is not a professor." And at that moment I understood feminism, how it intersects with power, class and the lived experience of every woman. The most clever person in any room can be diminished from birth purely because of her gender, and Ailbhe Smyth set us on our journey of resisting that.
Ailbhe has been at the forefront of every modern progressive movement aiming to change the lives of women for the better on this island. She has not only spoken truth to power, she speaks with power, the power that only deep intelligence, emotional connection and reflective lived experience bring. So we believe her when she explains her position, even if we don’t agree with her. I just happen to usually agree with her and learn from her.
She has been part of campaigning for change when referenda have been lost and when they have been won. She has been at the spearhead of a women’s movement in Ireland that has begun to confidently and systemically undo the egregious structural harms and violence against women since partition.
With her infectious good humour and unending optimism, she continues to be part of the most important conversations on this island. How to ensure climate justice. How to fight the far right. How to deconstruct the class structures and poverty that are assumed as permanent. How to end partition. Ailbhe is in the DNA of all of those age-old and most modern of conversations. And she is very much my hero.
Breithlá shona duit, Ailbhe.
