The Irish Housewives Association (IHA) was an influential pressure group founded in 1942 to speak out about injustices and the needs of Irish women, inside and outside the home. The organization continued until 1992, when it dissolved itself.
7-612: The IHA was founded by Hilda Tweedy along with Andree Sheehy-Skeffington, Susan Manning, and Louie Bennett. The group organized a 'Housewives Petition' sent to the Government before Budget Day in 1941. Later that year over 600 additional signatures were collected. Initially known as the Irish Housewives Committee , the group was formed at a meeting on 12 May 1942. They initially campaigned for school meals, free travel for pensioners, and consumer protection. In 1946
14-449: The 1937 Constitution of Ireland which defined (Article 41.2) women as home-makers. The merger "strengthened our feminist convictions" explained Tweedy. The work of the IHA expanded from just consumer rights to advocating for political rights. The organization fought for accessible nutritious food, public health, social welfare, and education for all. She was the official Irish delegate to
21-636: The IHA played a leading role in the setting up of the Council for the Status of Women (now the National Women's Council of Ireland ). In 1992 the IHA dissolved itself. Hilda Tweedy Hilda Tweedy , nÊe Anderson (1911â2005) was an Irish women's rights activist. A founding member and leader of the Irish Housewives' Association (IHA), she was active for decades advocating for
28-537: The onset of World War II she resolved to tackle the effects of wartime food shortages on children. Her efforts with four other women resulted in the Housewives Petition of 1941, out of which grew the Irish Housewives Committee in 1942, which became the IHA in 1946. Under Tweedy's leadership the IHA incorporated the Irish Women's Citizens Association in 1947, a group founded to lobby for reform of
35-614: The organization renamed itself Irish Housewives Association. In 1947, the IHA affiliated to the International Alliance of Women . Members of IHA, Beatrice Dixon and Kathleen Swanton began a campaign to have women serve on juries in Ireland. In 1957, Dixon went on to become the first women to serve on a jury. From 1954 until the early 1960s, the IHA was infiltrated and investigated by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid 's Vigilance Committee for communist activity. In 1968,
42-518: The rights of women on a diverse number of issues including equal pay, girls' education, recycling, the marriage bar (an Irish law that required a woman employed in the civil service to resign her position when she married), the right of women to serve on juries, and other issues. Hilda Anderson was born in Clones, County Monaghan on 26 August 1911.She was the eldest of three girls born to Rev. James Ferguson Anderson and Muriel Frances Victoria Swayne. She
49-618: Was educated at Alexandra College . After leaving school she joined her parents in Egypt. From 1929 to 1936 she lived in Egypt, starting a PNEU school in Alexandria , and reading for an external mathematics degree from the University of London . In 1936 she married Robert Tweedy in Egypt, and returned to Dublin . Tweedy was refused a job as a teacher on the grounds that if she became pregnant it would be unpleasant for her students. With
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