Rosaleen Mills (16 July 1905 – 17 September 1993) was an Irish activist and educator.
Early life and education
Rosaleen Mills was born in
Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe ( ; ) is a town in the easternmost part of County Galway in Connacht. Located at an ancient crossing point on the River Suck, evidence of ancient settlement in the area includes a number of Bronze Age sites. Built around a 12th-ce ...
, County Galway on 16 July 1905. She was the fourth of the five children of John and Rosetta Mills (née Dobbin). Her father was Resident Medical Superintendent of the Connaught District Lunatic Asylum. She was educated at Mount Pleasant school, Ballinasloe and the
Roedean School
Roedean School is an independent day and boarding school founded in 1885 in Roedean Village on the outskirts of Brighton, East Sussex, England, and governed by Royal Charter. It is for girls aged 11 to 18. The campus is situated near the Sus ...
in Brighton, England. She studied Spanish and French at
Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
(TCD), attaining an MA in modern languages. While attending TCD she was an active member of the all-female Elizabethan Society, the only society women could join as members at the time. After graduation, she lived in Germany for a year, and travelled to France and Spain.
Later, she was the first woman to address the
College Historical Society
The College Historical Society (CHS) – popularly referred to as The Hist – is a debating society at Trinity College Dublin. It was established within the college in 1770 and was inspired by the club formed by the philosopher Edmund Bu ...
in 1969 in which she proposed the motion "That This House Reveres the Memory of Miss Pankhurst" at a debate chaired by
Sheelagh Murnaghan
Sheelagh Mary Murnaghan, (26 May 1924 – 14 September 1993) was an Ulster Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland at Stormont.
Early life
Sheelagh Mary Murnaghan was born on 24 May 1924 to Josep ...
. The society subsequently named an annual competition in her honour, the "Rosaleen Mills Maidens Final".
Career
From 1930 to 1936 Mills taught at Mount Temple school in
Clontarf, Dublin
Clontarf () is a largely affluent coastal suburb on the Northside of Dublin in the city's Dublin 3 postal district. Historically there were two centres of population, one on the coast towards the city, and the fishing village of Clontarf Sheds, ...
. From 1936 to 1937 she nursed her mother full-time, after which she took a position at the commercial office of the Canadian Embassy from 1938 to 1945. She then went on to teach at the private Knockrabo school in Goatstown, Dublin until its closure in the late 1950s. She helped to establish a new co-educational and non-denominational school
Sutton Park in Sutton, Dublin, in 1957, serving as the vice-principle until she retired in 1970.
Activism
From the 1920s, Mills was active in a variety of women's organisations, beginning with those founded by suffragists in her youth, becoming acquainted with
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington
Johanna Mary Sheehy Skeffington (née Sheehy; 24 May 1877 – 20 April 1946) was a suffragette and Irish nationalist. Along with her husband Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Margaret Cousins and James Cousins, she founded the Irish Women's Franchis ...
and
Rosamond Jacob
Rosamond Jacob (13 October 1888 – 11 October 1960) was an Irish writer and political activist. She was a lifelong activist for suffragist, republican and socialist causes and a writer of fiction.
Early life
She was born to lapsed Quaker paren ...
. She was involved in campaigns for women to be permitted to join the police force, and against the 1927 Juries Act which prohibited female jurors. She was a member of the
Women's Social and Progressive League
The Women's Social and Progressive League was a women's organisation and political party founded in Ireland in 1937 by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. It was committed to opposing the 1937 constitution of Ireland and any regressive consequences it wo ...
.
Mills joined the
Irish Housewives Association The Irish Housewives Association (IHA) was an influential pressure group founded in 1942 to speak out about injustices and the needs of Irish women, inside and outside the home.Hilda Tweedy obituary, ''Irish Times'', 9 July 2005. The organization c ...
(IHA) soon after its establishment in 1942. She took part in the IHA campaigns and was a regular contributor to ''The Irish Housewife'', the organisation's journal. From its establishment in 1948, she sat on the council of the Irish Association of Civil Liberty, serving as president in the early 1960s. She was also involved with the
Dublin University Women Graduates Association, spending a summer in Geneva in 1951 representing Irish women graduates as a delegate of the International Federation of University Women, observing at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Mills was elected president of the
Irish Federation of Women's Graduates' Associations
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland
Northern Ir ...
in 1963.
In 1965 the UN Commission on Women issued a directive to women's organisations internationally calling on them to examine the status of women in their country. This was led in Ireland by an "ad hoc committee", chaired by
Hilda Tweedy
Hilda Tweedy, ''née'' Anderson (1911–2005) was an Irish women's rights activist. A founding member and leader of the Irish Housewives' Association (IHA), she was active for decades advocating for the rights of women on a diverse number of iss ...
with Mills sitting on the committee as an independent member. The committee outlined a number of discoveries, including that Ireland had not signed or ratified a number of UN conventions relating to women, as well as a number of issues relating to inequality in pay and access to education, and discrimination against married women. Following the findings of the committee, the Irish government established the first National Commission on the Status of Women in 1970, which presented wide-ranging recommendations for government policy changes in 1972. The Council for the Status of Women was established to ensure the implementation of the recommendations, with Tweedy elected chair, and Mills as vice chair. She replaced Tweedy as chair in May 1976, serving until April 1977. As the precursor to the
National Women's Council of Ireland
The National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) is a representative organisation for women and women's groups in Ireland.
It was originally known as the Council for the Status of Women.
Policies
The mission of the NWCI is to achieve women's equa ...
, the council was the largest women's organisation in Ireland.
Later life
Mills was fluent in seven languages, and travelled extensively across Europe and Russia. She was also involved in the
Irish Georgian Society
The Irish Georgian Society is an architectural heritage and preservation organisation which promotes and aims to encourage an interest in the conservation of distinguished examples of architecture and the allied arts of all periods across Ire ...
, the Irish Association for Social, Cultural and Economic Relations,
An Taisce
An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland (; meaning "the store" or "the treasury"), established in June 1948, is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) active in the areas of the environment and built heritage in Ireland. It considers itself t ...
and the United Arts Club. For most of her adult life, she lived at 37 Percy Place, Dublin 4, before moving to St Mary's Nursing Home, Pembroke Road. She died there on 17 September 1993.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mills, Rosaleen
1905 births
1993 deaths
People from County Galway
Irish women's rights activists
Irish women activists