Network Activities

A talk by Pat O'Connor Dec 5th 2024

A talk by Pat O’Connor, emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Limerick, and Visiting Professor, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.

^{L:R: Prof. Pat O'Connor and Dr. Helen Maher}

Pat O’Connor is an academic insider who is an engaging, humorous and brutally honest speaker. Her memoir: ‘A ‘proper’ woman? One woman’s story of success and failure in academia’ (Peter Lang, 2024) was reviewed in the Irish Times and Sunday Independent, with an edited extract published in the UK Times Higher Education and a book launch at Kings College, London. A full professor and former Dean, she has published widely on higher education, its gendered processes and the gendered aspects of women’s lives over a 46-year academic career as she tried to create change in academia, organisationally, nationally and internationally.

Reading extracts from her memoir: ‘A ‘proper’ woman?’, she described the subtle and relentless processes of devaluation, margina­lisation and disempowerment that are often ‘nor­malised’ in academia. 

^{L:R Prof. Margaret Hodgins, Prof. Pat O'Connor and Dr. Helen Maher}

^{L:R: Margaret Forde, Dr Laura Loftus, Prof. Pat O'Connor, Aoife Cooke and Dr. Helen Maher}

Annual Sheehy Skeffington Event 2024-Diane Byrne

Finding the Courage to Fight
Our speaker Diane Byrne shared her story working with the Irish Army for 13 years at the Annual Sheehy Skeffington event held in the O'Donoghue Theatre, Nov 8th 2024. As spokesperson for the Women of Honour group, Diane has been a tireless advocate for transparency within the Irish Defence Forces, acting as a voice for victims and an advocate for victim-led approaches to securing truth and justice for women who were repeatedly failed by the Defence Forces. She has spoken openly about the personal impact of her own experiences, including on her mental health and is a passionate advocate for cultural change in the Defence Forces and across Irish society.

 _{Retired Army Captain Diane Byrne (Sheehy Skeffington Speaker), Prof Kate Kenny (Lecture Chair),  Prof Peter McHugh (Interim present), 
Dr Olivia McDermott )Academic co-chair of UWN), Prof Margaret Hodgins (former UWN academic co-chair).}

The Women of Honour are a group of current and former members of the Irish Defence Forces who were subjected to a range of abuses including sexual assaults, discrimination, bullying, misogyny, victimisation, and violence. On foot of an RTÉ radio documentary in 2021 and the group’s continuing efforts to highlight the abuses and injustices they have endured, an Independent Review Report was published in 2022, and a Tribunal of Inquiry opened in June 2024.

Annual Sheehy Skeffington event 2023, Dr Kim Young-McLear

We welcomed Dr. Kim Young-McLear from the USA an organizational strategist, cybersecurity professional, and professor with more than 25 years of deep expertise within the US federal government, higher education, and community organizing. Dr Kim delivered the lecture at the Annual Sheehy Skeffington Distinguished Lecture Oct 20th, 2023. If you would like to find out more about this year’s speaker, please see this short video outlining her experiences as a whistleblower. 

Dr Tom Clonan (Senator) former captain in the Irish Army also joined Dr Kim, speaking about his experience of whistleblowing on Sexual Violence in the Armed Forces.