An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir March 2019 www.dfmagazine.ie 32 | a group of some 300 people huddled close together, some linking arms, some turning their backs while others stared defiantly at approaching police, standing between them and their target – the women on the platform complaining about the treatment of Irish female prisoners in English jails. Suddenly the policemen charged, pushing those on the fringes out of their way, striking with their batons at any who resisted them, driving a wedge through the crowd towards the speakers' platform. The Daily Herald reported police "had to fight their way through a cordon of citizens to reach the car on which the speakers were" while The Larne Times added that "missiles were thrown and a few of the police were hurt". No mention was made of injured civilians. And there were injured – at least one mortally. Although terrified, Josie McGowan, slim young girl of just 20 years, had none-the-less bravely faced the police and refused to budge while those around her were knocked to the ground or pushed aside, until a policeman struck her hard, driving his baton several times into her ribcage and stomach and, losing consciousness, she collapsed as her attackers struggled past. When she came to Josie discovered she was in a field hospital run by Cumann na mBan in Ticknock, in the Dublin mountains. Badly injured, she had been carried there quickly, as she could not be brought home or to any hospital in Dublin for fear of arrest. Alas, by the following Saturday, she was dead. Then, under cover of darkness, Josie was taken home to her distraught parents and the family doctor notified. He certified pneumonia as the cause of death probably to protect the family from the authorities … and gossiping neighbours, as it explained why they would not have seen her for several days. On Thursday, October 3rd, twenty-year-old Josie was buried in a pauper's grave in Dublin's Prospect Cemetery. There she was joined by her father just seven days later – dead, allegedly, of a broken heart, just 45 years of age. Josie McGowan left little behind – three photographs and two posthumously awarded medals are the only physical reminders of her brief life. She gave herself to help others – the poor, the starving, the illiterate – through Inghinidhe na hÉireann. Through Cumann na mBan, with a "willing heart, earnestness and determination" she tried to overthrow a sys- tem that cared nought about these or any other Irish people. But her life's spark, and that of all the other willing hearts of Cumann na mBan, kept alive the fire that eventually burned and destroyed the shackles of that Empire she fought so bravely against. About the author: Mícheál Ó Doibhilín is MD/editor of Kilmainham Tales Teo., a publishing house specialising mainly in 19th and early 20th Century Irish history, and has worked for the last ten years as an information officer/tour guide in Kilmainham Gaol. The company has published over 26 books, authors include Las Fallon, Paul O'Brien, Shane Kenna, Rory O'Dwyer, Joseph E.A. Connell Jnr and Ciara Scott, as well as Mícheál himself. The company has a full programme of books to mark the centenary of the Rising. www.kilmainhamtales.ie

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