Bridget Redmond

Each General Election in Ireland brings on debate about the involvement of women in politics and indeed today there are quotas regarding the selection process of election candidates.

The 33rd Dail for example had just under 23?male representation.

So it comes as no surprise then in the first fifty years or so of the Dail after Irish independence female representation was quite small. Indeed from 1923 to 1952 only 13 women held seats. Among them was a woman called Bridget Redmond who championed amongst other things social housing and living conditions.

Her obituary in the Irish Independent in May 1952 provides the following information:

The death occurred on Saturday, at the residence of her mother Athgarvan,  Curragh Camp, of Mrs. Bridget Redmond, who had been Fine Gael T.D. for Waterford for nineteen years. She had been seriously ill for some weeks.

Mrs Redmond was widow of Captain W. A. Redmond. D.S.O.. T.D.. who was only son of the late Mr. John Redmond, M.P.. leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party for many years. Born in 1905, she was the eldest daughter of Mrs. Mallick and the late Mr. John Mallick, The Curragh and was educated at the Ursuline Convent, Waterford.

Her election to the Dail as Cumann na Gaedheal representative in 1933 added a link to the Parliamentary tradition of the Redmond family in Waterford for a member of the family had represented Waterford in Parliament continuously since 1891 when Mr. John Redmond became M.P. in the British House of Commons. On Mr. Redmond's death in 1918 his son Capt. Willie Redmond, at Waterford's invitation, left Tyrone to sit for Waterford, first in Westminster and afterwards in the Dail until his death in 1933. Mrs. Redmond was elected in that year to succeed her husband, and retained the seat at each subsequent election. Mrs. Redmond was punctilious in her attendance to her Dail duties and was a frequent contributor to debates. She was particularly interested in legislation affecting housing and social conditions.

She was a well-known sportswoman and a keen rider to bounds. Her father was a noted' judge of horses and the Mallicit colours are familiar at meetings in England as well as In Ireland.

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