Erased Leader: Margaret Buckley and Ireland’s Counter-Revolution

Erased Leader: Margaret Buckley and Ireland’s Counter-Revolution

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Episode Summary

In this episode of Undercover Irish, we uncover the story of Margaret Buckley — a woman erased from Ireland’s historical record, despite being President of Sinn Féin in 1937 and a central figure of the revolutionary period.

We begin by challenging a famous moment from Reeling in the Years, which claims Mary Harney became the first female leader of an Irish political party in 1993.

That claim is wrong.

Ireland had a female party leader decades earlier, and her name was Margaret Buckley.

Her erasure tells us something profound about how Ireland remembers — and forgets — its own revolution.

What We Explore in This Episode

🔹 Margaret Buckley’s Life & Leadership

Her work as a republican, feminist, socialist, author, political prisoner, and ultimately Uachtarán Shinn Féin.

🔹 The Democratic Programme of the First Dáil

Its radical commitments to social justice, workers’ rights, and public welfare — and why the Free State buried it almost immediately.

🔹 The Dáil Courts

How Buckley served as a judge in these revolutionary courts, which attempted to replace the British legal system — and why their destruction marked the counter-revolution.

🔹 Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s

A period wrongly remembered as naturally conservative — when in fact women remained active, radical ideas persisted, and the state was actively reshaping memory.

🔹 The Jangle of the Keys

Buckley’s extraordinary prison memoir, offering insight into her politics, humour, and determination — written because the Free State imprisoned her.

🔹 Buckley vs. the Free State & the 1937 Constitution

Her critique of the Treaty, her objections to the Constitution’s treatment of women and workers, and her belief that the true Republic of 1919 had been betrayed.

🔹 Why It Matters Today: How History Gets Written

We reflect on historiography itself — who gets remembered, who gets erased, and why the “official story” so often leaves out women, radicals, and republicans who didn’t fit the state’s preferred narrative.

📚 Further Reading

Margaret Buckley — The Jangle of the Keys

Her essential memoir, written during her imprisonment, offering a firsthand account of women in the revolution and life inside Free State jails.

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Eolan Ryng (@undercoverirish) • Instagram photos and videos