Madam Politician: Kilskyre native's book on women who made it to the top

RTE's political correspondent Martina Fitzgerald this week launches a book on Ireland's most senior women politicians - the women who made it to the cabinet table over the last century, and Ireland's two female presidents.

She speaks to all 17 living members of the 19 women appointed to cabinet since Countess Markievicz was appointed Minister for Labour in the first Dáil. Meath East TD, Regina Doherty, and two former Meath residents, Mary Mitchell O'Connor and Mary McAleese feature.
The Kilskyre native conducts revealing interviews which convey the often-shared difficulties and troubles of getting onto the political ladder in the first place; how, during the '70s and '80s , many had to contend with voters who believed they should have been at home minding their children instead.
Fitzgerald hails from Kilskyre, where her mother, Theresa and late father, Tom, owned the local shop. “We read all the newspapers every morning,” she says.
After attending national school in Kilskyre, she went on to Eureka Secondary School in Kells, and last year returned to give a talk on women in politics to students in Eureka along with Minister Helen McEntee and former Senator Lorraine Higgins about women in politics. Fitzgerald's mother, Theresa, lives in Athboy.
“As a female correspondent in Leinster House, I became very conscious of small number of female politicians in national politics,” she says. “In 2016, following the introduction of gender quotas, the number of female TDs surpassed the 30 mark for the first time - with 35 elected. In terms of female representation at cabinet, just 19 women have served as senior ministers since 1919. Next April is the 100th year anniversary of the appointment of Countess Markievicz as Ireland's first female minister. So I decided it was the right time and very important to tell the stories of these women who really are trailblazers.
“All 17 surviving female ministers agreed to tell me about their experiences at the cabinet table. So I got in to my car last October and travelled around the country to interview each one of them. I wrote Madam Politician while I was also working full-time as RTÉ's Political Correspondent so every spare moment, I was stuck to my laptop. It was hectic but I’m very proud of Madam Politician.”

The interviewees are: Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, Gemma Hussey, Mary O'Rourke, Nora Owen, Niamh Bhreathnach, Mary Harney, Sile de Valera, Mary Coughlan, Mary Hanafin, Joan Burton, Frances Fitzgerald, Jan O'Sullivan, Heather Humphreys, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, Katherine Zappone, Regina Doherty and Josepha Madigan.

Retired Justice Catherine McGuinness launches the book in the National Library this evening (Tuesday).

Doherty rules out future leadership bid in Fitzgerald book

Meath East TD and Minister for Social Welfare Regina Doherty has ruled out running for the leadership of Fine Gael in the future due to family considerations. 
“It would mean that I would genuinely have to turn my back on my parents, my husband, and my four children. I’m too selfish to do that,” she tells RTE political correspondent, Martina Fitzgerald, un her new book ‘Madame Politician’.
The Ratoath deputy believes these types of considerations are more likely to affect women than men in political life.
“I look at Leo and he works six-and-a-half days a week. I looked at Enda Kenny beforehand, and he worked seven days a week. He would phone his children every evening. I wouldn’t be prepared to do that,” she says.
“I happen to love my family more than I love my country…. I wouldn’t be prepared to give that up just to be leader of a party or the leader of my country.”
Doherty is one of just 19 female politicians to have made it to the cabinet table in the 100 years since Countess Marcievicz was the first woman minister.
Kilskyre native journalist Fitzgerald has for the first time brought the 17 surviving ministers and the country’s two past female presidents together in her book, where they discuss the challenges and triumphs of getting to the top tables of Irish political life. 
Doherty reveals she was not the first choice to run alongside the late Shane McEntee in Meath East in the 2007 election.  The preferred candidate for Meath East withdrew upon becoming pregnant, she says. She also attributes her selection to the party wanting a woman on the ticket. 
The then councillor was also pregnant with child number four when approached to run, and two of her children had special needs.
One factor that motivated her was the allocation of resources for children. Her mother, a former local election candidate in Dublin, influenced her over Christmas dinner, saying “You would have better luck if you were on the inside”.
She did experience some comments about her being seven months pregnant when she went for the nomination in 2007, but had weighted up the implications for family life.
A decade on, she agrees that female politicians are subjected to unwarranted attention from male colleagues. 
“There are certain men in all organisations, and it isn’t unique to Leinster House, that think they’re God’s gift to women and they only have to flutter their eyelashes or say something particularly sexual or crude to you, and you are supposed to fall down on your ground  - ‘Oh woe is me, I’m so lucky.”