Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Donegal women in the Civil War

BY LIZA GALLEN, EQUALITY OFFICER, DONEGAL SINN FÉIN

The women of Donegal who played a part in the Civil war were, like their male counterparts, subjected to torture and degrading treatment at the hands of Free State forces for upholding their republican principles following the signing of the Treaty. The international laws governing the Red Cross and respected throughout the world, stood in very little standing with the officers and men of the Donegal Command of the Free State army.

Women held captive at Buncrana Barracks were subjected to very harsh treatment. One woman, Cissie O'Doherty, unmercifully kicked by an army officer, suffered such severe injuries that she later had to undergo a serious operation and spent a number of months in hospital recuperating. This was as a result of an officer's display of his toe-plated army boots manufactured in England.

Theresa McGeehan, Marian Blake, Mary McBride and many other women throughout the country were subjected to similar torture throughout the Civil War and this was probably by the same men who would have sought food and sanctuary from these women during the Tan War.

Marian Blake was to suffer with poor health long after her release, the result of the conditions the women had to endure during their incarceration at Buncrana. These conditions cost the life of Mary McBride, who died soon after from the effects of a cold contracted from wet blankets supplied to the prison. The women were then held in a cold clammy cell in a disused portion of the barracks, used as a punishment area, for that awful crime of shouting "Up the Republic".

Free State forces used various tactics to try to break the spirit of these women and when all else failed they resorted to defamation of character, with officers broadcasting the vilest and most degrading allegations about the women - all this for simply upholding the principles of the Republic, which the Free State forces at one time upheld, but had since deserted.