Born in
France, Louise Gavan Duffy was the daughter of the Irish nationalist
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, one of the founders of
The Nation and his third wife, Louise (née Hall) from
Cheshire, England. As a result of his activities as a nationalist, her father had been repeatedly tried for treason. He was elected to
Westminster in 1852. Frustrated, he moved to Australia where he later became the 8th
Premier of Victoria. He retired to France in 1880 where the warmer weather suited him. Louise's mother died when she was four; she was then reared in
Nice by her Australian half-sisters from her father's second marriage. Louise's brother
George Gavan Duffy, one of the signatories to the
Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, was an Irish politician, barrister and judge. Her half-brother
Sir Frank Gavan Duffy was the fourth Chief Justice of the
High Court of Australia, sitting on the bench from 1913 to 1935. Another brother worked most of his life as a missionary in the French colony of
Pondicherry.
Studies Duffy's first visit to Ireland was in 1903, at the age of 18, when her father died and was buried in
Glasnevin Cemetery. That was when she first heard
Irish spoken; she found a grammar book in a bookshop and became curious, she would later write. Her father was not an Irish speaker, though her grandmother in the early 1800s should have been fluent. She spent the years between 1903 and 1907 between France and England. She took courses through Cusack's College in London so that she could matriculate. She decided to continue her studies in Dublin but could not afford to move until she received a small inheritance from her grandmother on the Hall side of the family. Once in Ireland in 1907, at the age of 23, she began her university studies, taking arts. She lived in the Women's College, Dominican Convent (as women were not allowed to attend lectures in the
Royal University of Ireland). She went occasionally to the
Gaeltacht to learn Irish. Graduating in 1911 with a Bachelor of Arts, from University College Dublin (
NUI) she was one of the first women to do so. Given the lack of teachers, even without a full qualification, she then taught in
Patrick Pearse's St Ita's school for girls in
Ranelagh. Duffy studied with the Dominicans again in Eccles Street, gaining a Teaching Diploma from Cambridge University.
Politics A supporter of
women's suffrage, Duffy spoke at a mass meeting in Dublin in 1912 in favour having of the
Home Rule bill include a section to grant women the vote. She also joined the
Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation
Cumann na mBan, as a founding member in April 1914, serving on the provisional committee with
Mary Colum, as a co-secretary. She was aware that being a suffragist and a nationalist were not necessarily the same thing, realising her involvement in
Cumann na mBan was in support of nationalism. When St Ita's closed for funding problems in 1912, Duffy took the opportunity to complete her qualifications. After receiving her Cambridge teacher's diploma in 1913, she returned to UCD to study for a Master of Arts degree. She was in fact working on her Master's thesis during the Easter break in 1916 when the rumour came to her that the
Rising had begun in
Dublin city centre. She walked to the Rebel headquarters in the
GPO where she told
Pearse, one of the leaders, that she did not agree with the violent uprising.
I was brought to Pearse and had the temerity to tell him that I thought the rebellion was very wrong as it would certainly fail but that I wished to be there if there was going to be anything doing. She spent all of Easter week working in the GPO kitchens with other volunteers like
Desmond FitzGerald and a couple of captured British soldiers,
ensuring the volunteers were cared for. The women in the GPO were given the opportunity to leave under the protection of the
Red Cross on the Thursday as the shelling of the building had caused fires but almost all of them refused. In the end the she was amongst the second group of the people to leave the GPO on the Friday, tunnelling through the walls of the buildings to avoid coming under fire. Her group made it to
Jervis Street Hospital where they spent the night. The next day, Saturday, Pearse formally surrendered. Duffy headed for Jacob's Biscuit Factory, another volunteer position, on the morning after the surrender, to see what was happening. There she found a hold out of volunteers who were unaware of the surrender or that the fighting was over. After 1916 she was elected to the
Cumann na mBan’s executive and in 1918 was one of the signatories to a petition for self-determination for Ireland which was presented to President
Woodrow Wilson by
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. During her time in the GPO, she had collected names of the volunteers and promised to take messages to their families. This may have influenced her in being involved in the National Aid Association and Volunteers Dependants Fund. In the aftermath of the rebellion there were 64 known dead among the volunteers, while 3,430 men and 79 women were arrested. Families needed support. These organisations were able to arrange funding from the USA.
Scoil Bhríde In 1917 Duffy co-founded and ran
Scoil Bhríde, as a secondary
school (at that time) for girls in Dublin through the medium of Gaelic. It is still in operation as a primary school. Her co-founder was Annie McHugh who later married
Ernest Blythe. The end of the Rising led to the
Irish War of Independence. It was fought from 1919 to 1921. During this time, Duffy was mostly focused on the school. However, it was raided by the military and Duffy later admitted it was in fact used for rebel meetings and to safeguard documents. In October 1920, the Irish leader
Michael Collins met Archbishop
Patrick Clune there in secret. In an effort to support the nationwide boycott of the police - the
Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), in 1920 Duffy had a leaflet sent to all branches of Cumann na mBan which stated (in part) that the RIC were the "eyes and ears of the enemy. Let those eyes and ears know no friendship...". The war ended with the
Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. The result was the
Irish Civil War which lasted until 1923. Duffy was a supporter of the Treaty, which her brother had signed, and as such she left
Cumann na mBan and joined
Cumann na Saoirse which she was instrumental in founding as an Irish republican women's organisation which supported the Pro-Treaty side. Once the civil war was over, Duffy left the political arena and returned to education. She especially needed to focus on funding in the early years of the school. She worked with UCD's Department of Education from 1926, once
Scoil Bhríde was recognised as a teacher training school. She published educational documents like
School Studies in The Appreciation of Art with
Elizabeth Aughney and published by UCD in 1932. Until her retirement, she also lectured on the teaching of French. She retired as principal in 1944. Once retired, she gave much of her time to the
Legion of Mary and to an association which worked with
French au pairs in Dublin. In 1948 she was awarded an honorary
Doctorate of Laws by the
National University of Ireland. == Historical legacy ==