‘Kate Kennedy will get the recognition she fully deserves’

US Ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin, to unveil sculpture of Duleek native and pioneering US feminist to mark International Women's Day

The US Ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin, will unveil a sculpture of Duleek native and pioneering US feminist, Kate Kennedy, outside Duleek Girls National School on 8th March, International Women's Day.

Kate Kennedy, who was born in Gaskinstown, Duleek was the first woman in the world to take legal action over equal pay and win, and was also the first woman to run for public office in the state of California.

Her name is very well known in the US and internationally, but her remarkable achievements are almost unknown in her native country.

A local committee in Duleek moved to remedy that and commissioned Carnaross sculptor, Betty Newman Maguire, to create a bust of Kate, which will be unveiled next week outside the girl's school.

Ken Murray, who is leading the project say they are also planning to launch a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for a bigger memorial to her in the centre of Duleek.

Members of the Kate Kennedy Commemoration Committee, include Ken Murray, Cllr Stephen McKee, Paddy McKenna and family relative Pat Kennedy from Navan.

Kate Kennedy died in 1890 and a school in her honour still functions to this day at 1670 Noe Street, San Francisco. The pioneering visionary became the first person in the world to achieve equal pay for equal work following persistent agitation in California in the late 1800s.

According to Ken Murray, “Kate Kennedy is famous outside Ireland and her name appears in numerous books celebrating international feminist achievements yet relatively little is known about her here. She has been a great inspiration to so many female activists who continue to push for real equality,” he said.

“I first became aware of her achievements in 1993 when I came across her details in a book and having eventually tracked down her relative Pat, who lives in Randalstown outside Navan, we formed a Committee,” says Ken.

Councillor Stephen McKee, who lives beside Gaskinstown where Kate Kennedy is originally from, and is part of the organising committee, said the proposed commemoration is long overdue.

"It is extraordinary that so many decades have come and gone since her passing in 1890 and yet so little is known about her in Ireland. We will welcome various members of the Kennedy family from the US to Duleek to mark the occasion, the US Ambassador to Ireland Claire D Cronin will be here, and Kate Kennedy will get the recognition she fully deserves."

Pat Kennedy's grandfather was a first cousin of Kate Kennedy. "I am delighted she is now getting the recognitions he deserves in her own county," he says.

Pat was aware of her as he was growing up as her niece, Alice Claire Lynch, wrote a book about her and had been in correspondence with Pat's father Robert at the time.

"She was born in Gaskinstown, but moved the family moved to Randalstown and she emigrated from there."

The story of Kate Kennedy is a modern-day reminder of the many Irish emigrants who left this Country in search of a better life but through circumstances, vision and sheer determination, made an outstanding mark elsewhere for future generations.

Born in the townland of Gaskinstown, west of Duleek in 1827, she attended the local national school. Her family later moved to Randalstown, Navan and she attended Loreto College in Navan before emigrating to San Francisco in the early 1856.

Having secured a position as a Principal teacher at North Cosmopolitan Grammar School in San Francisco in 1867, she learned some years later that male principals were paid more than females and after intense personal lobbying, she eventually persuaded the California State legislature to change the law.

The rebellious Duleek woman then found herself demoted for political activism and undertook legal action in 1887. Her successful court action against the local Board of Education three years later saw a landmark decision rule that teachers could not be demoted unless for misconduct or incompetence ensuring security of employment for male and female teachers.