Happy International Women’s Day everyone – a good day to share info on Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1863–1941). The first woman ever elected to Dublin City Council, she worked to promote women’s rights, help those in poverty and establish the allotments movement in Ireland. She was a committee member of the Vacant Land Cultivation Society, set up to develop provision of allotments on waste land, a cause dear to our hearts here in Mud Island Community Garden! She was a frequent writer to the The Irish Times and wrote a letter in 1911 on the benefits of allotments, saying that those: “…who have had their gardens for a year value them highly; most of them have some members of their family to help them; some say they find their health much improved by the frequent work in the open air” By 1919, The Irish Times reported 3000 allotment plots in Dublin City alone. Sarah’s letter that same year said “The plot holders of Ireland ask no special privileges; they simply ask that they should have the right to an allotment when they are ready to increase food production by cultivating food for their families in their free time.”
Thanks to Dónall Mac Cormaic of Blessington Allotments for the link
