Louise Gavan Duffy, Born

Louise Gavan Duffy (Irish: Luíse Ghabhánach Ní Dhufaigh, 17 July 1884 – 12 October 1969) was an educator, an Irish language enthusiast and a Gaelic revivalist, setting up the first Gaelscoil in Ireland.

She was also a suffragist and Irish nationalist who was present in the General Post Office, the main headquarters during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Duffy was born in Nice, France, into an Anglo-Australian-Irish family. Her father, and later her brothers, were important figures in political and legal spheres in Ireland and Australia. She was raised in France in a well-to-do and culturally vibrant home where she was exposed to political figures and ideas.

She was one of the first women to graduate from University College Dublin, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1911.

Her interest in women’s suffrage and Irish nationalism led to close connections with those movements and with similarly minded women. She became a founding member of two of the country’s paramilitary republican organisations for women, Cumann na mBan and Cumann na Saoirse. She was sent off to cook for the revolutionaries during the Irish Easter Rebellion in 1916.

As she became increasingly interested and competent in Irish, she eventually established the first secondary school through the medium of Irish in 1917.