Margarita Cappock and Hannah Baker review works from the oeuvre of artist Sarah Cecilia Harrison
Artist and friend of the poor’ – this succinct inscription on the grave of Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1863–1941) in Mount Jerome Cemetery captures the life of a woman whose contribution to the political and cultural fabric of Dublin has, until recently, been largely overlooked. Her achievements are many – as an artist, an activist and social campaigner, and as the first woman elected as a councillor to Dublin Corporation in 1912. She campaigned tirelessly to improve living and working conditions for Dublin’s poor, including better-quality housing and access to food. Her passion for the rights of women meant that she was a key activist in the Irish suffrage movement.
Unravelling the sequence of carving on the stones has been challenging but has been helped by the fact that there are so many examples to study, writes Elizabeth Shee Twohig
