Elizabeth "Lisbeth" Anne Maud McCracken (c. 1871 – 1944), was a womens' suffragist and—under her maiden name L.A.M. Priestley—a feminist writer, active in the north of Ireland. Although unionist herself, with other members of the Belfast

Irish Women's Suffrage Society The Irish Women's Suffrage Society was an organisation for women's suffrage, founded by Isabella Tod as the North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society in 1872. Determined lobbying by the Society ensured the 1887 Act creating a new city-status munici ...

she joined the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

in declaring a direct-action campaign against

Ulster Unionists The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

for their refusal in 1914 to honour a votes-for-women pledge. After the First World War and the achievement of the vote, she continued in what was now

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

to campaign on issues of domestic violence and sex discrimination.

Personal life

Sources provide conflicting information about Elizabeth's birth and childhood. The 1901 census records her age as 31 and married to George McCracken, a Belfast solicitor, however, the 1911 census records her age as 37, and a journalist in the occupation column. The General Register Office Northern Ireland records state her age at death as 73. She had three sons; George Stavely (born 1901), Maurice Lee (born 1902) and James Priestley (born 1904). McCracken lived in later years between Seafield House, Bangor and Brae Lodge,

Greyabbey Greyabbey or Grey Abbey is a small village, townland (of 208 acres) and civil parish located on the eastern shores of Strangford Lough, on the Ards Peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies south of Newtownards. Both townland and c ...

, Co Down. She is buried at Bangor New Cemetery, Co Down, Northern Ireland, following several years of illness.

Writing

McCracken was a journalist and published author, writing under her maiden name L.A.M. Priestley. Her first book, ''Love Stories of Some Eminent Women'' was published by Henry J Davis, London in 1906. In ''The'' ''Feminine in Fiction'' published, with a foreword by

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the I ...

, by Unwin in 1918, she dissected the relations between the sexes as described in the work of English novelists beginning with

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted i ...

. She chronicled the progression of the female heroine "from a passive creature with whom fortune played, willy-nilly, subordinate to the conventions of sex, a spectator in the game of life" to the

New Woman The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, Irish writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term "new woman" in an influential article, to refer to ...

ideal of

Sarah Grand Sarah Grand (10 June 1854 – 12 May 1943) was an English feminist writer active from 1873 to 1922. Her work revolved around the New Woman ideal. Early life and influences Sarah Grand was born Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke in Roseba ...

— "a capable being, with power and opportunity to shape her own lot". Writing as L.A.M. Priestley or L.A.M. Priestley-McCracken, she contributed to journals that ranged from the English suffragist journal ''

The Vote ''The Vote'' is a 2015 play by British playwright James Graham. The play received its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse as part of their spring 2015 season, where it ran from 24 April to 7 May 2015. Directed by Josie Rourke and set in a f ...

'' and the more overtly feminist ''The Irish Citizen'', to ''The Irish Presbyterian'' and in the

theosophist Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

journal ''The Herald of the Star''. Some of her articles were collected and published as popular pamphlets.

Politics

Filling out her household's

1911 census The United Kingdom Census 1911 of 2 April 1911 was the 12th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The total population of the United Kingdom was approximately 45,221,000, with 36,070,000 recorded in England ...

form, under "Specific Illnesses" McCracken wrote "Unenfranchised". She joined the

(first formed in Belfast as the North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society by

Isabella Tod Isabella Maria Susan Tod (18 May 1836 – 8 December 1896) was a Scottish-born campaigner for women’s civil and political equality, active in the north of Ireland. She lobbied for women’s rights to education and to property, for the di ...

in 1872) which associated the vote with ending a "the conspiracy of silence" on a range of pressing social issues. Weekly meetings in Belfast discussed temperance (McCracken was also involved in the

White ribbon The white ribbon is an awareness ribbon sometimes used by political movements to signify or spread their beliefs. It is usually worn on garments or represented in information sources such as posters, leaflets, etc. The White Ribbon has been th ...

movement), infant mortality, sex education, venereal disease, white slave trafficking, protective factory legislation for women and equal opportunities. In 1913, McCracken celebrated the "marriage of unionism and women's suffrage". She had not been impressed by what was then, with well over 100,000 members, the largest women's political group in Ireland, the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC). Writing to the Belfast ''

News Letter The ''News Letter'' is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published from Monday to Saturday. It is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737. The newspape ...

'', she noted the failure Unionist women to formulate "any demand on their own behalf or that of their own sex". But in September 1913, following reports that the

would begin organising in Ulster, the Ulster Unionist Council announced that the draft articles of the Provisional Government (readied for Ulster should a Dublin parliament be restored) included votes for women. With regard to an Irish parliament the

nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

would make no such undertaking. The rapprochement with Unionists, however, was short lived. In March 1914, after being door-stepped for four days in London,

Edward Carson Edward Henry Carson, 1st Baron Carson, PC, PC (Ire) (9 February 1854 – 22 October 1935), from 1900 to 1921 known as Sir Edward Carson, was an Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge, who served as the Attorney General and Solicito ...

ruled that Unionists could not take a position on so divisive an issue as women's suffrage.

Dorothy Evans Dorothy Elizabeth Evans (6 May 1888 – 28 August 1944) was a British feminist activist and suffragette. On the eve of World War I she was a militant organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union twice arrested in Belfast on explosiv ...

, the WSPU organiser in Belfast, declared an end to "the truce we have held in Ulster". With Margaret MacCoubrey, Dr. Elizabeth Bell and others in the IWSS (formally disbanded in April 1914), McCracken had joined the WSPU. But it is not clear what direct hand she had, if any, in the campaign that followed: targeting Unionist properties and culminating in Lilian Metge's bombing of

Lisburn Cathedral Christ Church Cathedral, Lisburn (also known as Lisburn Cathedral), is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Connor in the Church of Ireland. It is situated in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. Previously St ...

. Her husband, George McCracken, "appeared in the interests of the WSPU" in court when Evans and Metge created an uproar demanding to know why James Craig, who was then arming Unionists with smuggled German munitions, was not appearing on the same weapons and explosives charges. At the outbreak of world war, in ''The Irish Citizen'' McCracken asked "Shall Suffrage Cease?" She denounced the hypocrisy of men who, having subjected militant suffragists to a campaign "vituperation and invective", now, "with the most unblushing effrontery", asked women to approve "the most aggravated form of militancy—war". "What country is theirs", she asked, "who are defrauded of citizenship". In 1915, she invited

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

, who opposed the wartime suspension of WSPU agitation by her sister Christabel, to Belfast to speak in support equal pay for women doing war work. After the war and the grant of the vote to women over the age of 30, in what was now Northern Ireland McCracken wished to see women stand as parliamentary candidates independent of parties. The alternative, she believed, was to remain the "docile" instruments of "men's plans", whether they be unionist or nationalist. McCracken continued to campaign. She was particularly concerned with violence against women and girls and with the financial and legal dependence of women upon men upon which it fed.

Published work as L.A.M Priestley

1906 ''Love Stories of Some Eminent Women,'' Henry J Davis, London. 1914 "Shall Suffrage Cease?"
The Irish Citizen
'' 29 August 1914 1915 "Co-operative Housekeeping", ''The Irish Citizen'', 16 October 1918 The ''Feminine in Fiction'', G Allen & Unwin, London 1919 ''First Causes''. 1919 "Wife Beating", ''The Irish Citizen'', September. 1928 ''The Story of County Down'' (a contribution to fundraising efforts for the maternity hospital). 1933 "Mme Sarah Grand and Women's Emancipation", ''The Vote'' 34 (24 August): 244.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCracken, Elizabeth Irish suffragettes Writers from Northern Ireland 1870s births 1944 deaths Year of birth uncertain