3 March 2016
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
The Workers’ Party will hold an informal event in Cork at 4.00pm this Saturday (5th March) afternoon to mark International Women’s Day. The short ceremony will be held at the gates of the park in Grand Parade which has been unofficially renamed Mother Jones Park in honour of the Cork-born social agitator Mary Harris Jones. (International Women’s Day is on Tuesday, 8th March)
Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan said that the celebration of International Women’s Day was a reminder that the fight for full equality between men and women was one which still had some way to go in Ireland and internationally.
Cllr. Tynan said that International Women’s Day had its origins in a garment workers strike in New York in 1909 when American socialists observed a day of action to highlight the poor pay and working conditions of the all-female workforce.
Two years later in 1911 International Women’s Day became an established annual event first celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland to promote equal rights, including the right to vote March 8th became the recognised date for International Women’s Day two years later and the Workers’ Party has organised Saturday’s event to highlight the ongoing struggle of women worldwide, including Ireland, for full equality with men.
“A year ago we symbolically renamed the Bishop Lucey Park in honour of the great Cork born agitator Mother Jones who earned the title ‘the most dangerous woman in America’ not because she posed a danger to ordinary people but she posed a great danger to the political, judicial and corporate establishment through her indomitable and enduring struggle. This Saturday we return to Mother Jones Park to mark International Women’s Day as a living, vibrant and defiant international festival.” said Cllr. Tynan.