Margaret Buckley (née Goulding; Irish: Maighréad Uí Bhuachalla (née Ní Ghabhláin); July 1879 – 24 July 1962) was an Irish republican and president of Sinn Féin from 1937 to 1950. She was the first female leader of Sinn Féin and was the first Irishwoman to lead a political party.
Born in Cork, the daughter of James Goulding and Ellen Foyle, Margaret joined Inghinidhe na hÉireann, which was founded in 1900, taking an active role in the women's movement. She was involved in anti-British royal visit protests in 1903 and 1907 and was among the group that founded An Dún in Cork in 1910. In 1906, she married Patrick Buckley, described as "a typical rugby-playing British civil servant". After his death she moved into a house in Marguerite Road, Glasnevin, Dublin. Later, she returned to Cork to care for her elderly father.[2][3]
Revolutionary
Arrested in the aftermath of Easter Rising she was released in the amnesty of June 1917 and played a prominent role in the reorganisation of Sinn Féin. She was involved in the War of Independence in Cork.[4]
At the October 1934 Sinn Féin ardfheis, she was elected one of the party's vice-presidents. Three years later in 1937 she succeeded Cathal Ó Murchadha who was a former TD of the second Dáil Éireann as President of Sinn Féin,[4] at an ardfheis attended by only forty delegates, making her the first Irishwoman to lead a political party.
When she assumed the leadership of Sinn Féin, the party was not supported by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had severed its links with the party in 1925. When she left the office in 1950, relations with the IRA had been resolved. As President she began the lawsuit Buckley v. Attorney-General, the Sinn Féin Funds case, in which the party sought unsuccessfully to be recognised as owners of money raised by Sinn Féin before 1922 and held in trust in the High Court since 1924.[2]
In 1938, she published her book The Jangle of the Keys about the experiences of Irish Republican women prisoners interned by the Irish Free State. In 1956, her book Short History of Sinn Féin was published.
She was active in the cause of Sinn Fein well into her late seventies.[5] She served as honorary vice-president of Sinn Féin from 1950 until her death in 1962. She was the only member of the ardchomairle of the party not to be arrested during a police raid in July 1957.
^Thorne, Kathleen, (2014) Echoes of Their Footsteps, The Irish Civil War 1922-1924, Generation Organization, Newberg, OR, pg 226, ISBN 978-0-692-245-13-2