Former Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh will attend a VÓTAIL 100 event at Ballinamore Library this Friday (8 pm) to commemorate the life of the late TD, Mary Reynolds (1889-1974).
The 2014 Rose of Tralee winner, Mairead McGuinness MEP and Sean McGowan, Cathaoirleach of Leitrim County Council, will be among the special guests at the special event to remember a local woman who became a trail-blazing TD for Leitrim and Sligo between the 1930s and 1960s.
Mary Reynolds was a long-standing member of Dáil Éireann, serving as Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael TD for Sligo-Leitrim between 1932-1933 and 1937-1961. When she first became a TD in 1932, she was one of just two female TDs – the other being her party colleague, Margaret Collins O’Driscoll, sister of the late revolutionary Michael Collins. Mary proudly holds the record for women winning the most Dáil elections, being returned in nine of the ten she contested.
Keynote speaker on the evening will be well-known Irish historian Sinead McCoole while MC on the night is Nóirin Clancy, Chair of 5050, an advocacy group she co-founded to promote women in politics. All are welcome.
