1908
Irish Women's Franchise League formed
The Irish Women's Franchise League (IWFL) was formed by a group led by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins. It campaigned for women's suffrage (the right to vote in parliamentary elections) and aimed to have a women's suffrage clause added to any future Home Rule Bill.
The IWFL was not the first women's suffrage group in Ireland. In Belfast, the Northern Ireland Society for Women's Suffrage was formed by Isabella Tod in 1871. The Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association, which later became the Irish Women's Suffrage and Local Government Association (IWSLGA) in 1901, was founded by Anna and Thomas Haslam in 1876. However, the IWFL was a more militant organisation. Its founders admired the Women's Social and Political Union, formed in Manchester in 1903, which used civil disobedience and sometimes violence to gain publicity for its cause.
