Margaret Cousins

Margaret Elizabeth Gillespie was born on 7 November 1878 in Boyle, County Roscommon to Joseph Gillespie, a petty session clerk, and Margaret Annie Gillespie (née Shera). The eldest of 15 siblings, Cousins was raised in an Unionist and Methodist household. In 1894, Cousins was awarded a scholarship to study at Victoria High School for Girls in Derry. In 1898, Cousins moved to Dublin and studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music before attending the Royal University of Ireland. Cousins graduated with a BMus in 1902. ==Activism==

Ireland Following her marriage to James Cousins in 1903, Cousins worked as a part-time music teacher. Cousins co-founded the Irish Women's Franchise League with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington in 1908, serving as its first treasurer. In 1910 she was one of six Dublin women attending the Parliament of Women, which attempted to march to the House of Commons to hand a resolution to the Prime Minister. After 119 women marching to the House of Commons had been arrested, 50 requiring medical treatment, the women decided to break the windows of the houses of Cabinet Ministers. Cousins was arrested and sentenced to a month in Holloway Prison. The women demanded to be treated as political prisoners, and went on hunger strike to achieve release. James Cousins initially worked for New India before Besant was forced to dismiss him for an article praising the Easter Uprising. ==Personal life==

On 9 April 1903 Cousins married James Cousins, whom she had met in 1900. ==Publications==