On Easter Sunday, German radio station Radio Berlin Brandenburg broadcast a 10 minutes’ show on the Irish Republican women’s organisation Cumann na mBan. The programme is largely based on my recently published book on the women’s organisation and an interview I gave to journalist Rebecca Hillauer earlier this year. The radio show is an extended version of a similar show broadcasted by WDR 3 in their programme “Kultur am Mittag” on 31 March.
The journalist Rebecca Hillauer started the programme with the centenary events organised to commemorate the founding of Cumann na mBan in April 1914. This was followed by a run through the history of the organisation, its involvement in the 1916 rising, the War of Independence, and the Civil War. Then it moved on to the situation in the 1960s. The largest part of the show was devoted to the role of Irish Republican Women during the latest phase of the conflict in Ireland, the post-1969 war in the North of Ireland.
This fine radio show provides a useful insight into a largely neglected aspect of the North Ireland conflict by introducing Irish Republican women to a German audience. Ironically, the two most recent publications of women in Irish Republican paramilitary organisations during the later decades of the 20th century are written in German, not in English. (Book 1 is by Marianne Quoirin and book 2 is my own book.)
The radio show is available as an audio stream from this link… Enjoy!
So 16.04.2017 | 17:04 | Zeitpunkte – Magazin
ZEITPUNKTE – Dieter Reinisch: Die Frauenorganisation der IRA – Cumann na mBan
Der Nordirlandkonflikt fand 1998 sein – zumindest vorläufiges – Ende. Mit einer Dauer von 30 Jahren und 3000 Toten gilt er als der längste und blutigste Konflikt in Westeuropa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Frauen kämpften vor allem bei den Republikanern Seite an Seite mit Männern und veränderten dadurch das Frauenbild in der Gesellschaft.