Some famous Irish communists
Madge Davison
(1949–1991)
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In 1970 the Communist Youth League merged with the Connolly Youth Movement (founded in 1963), and Madge Davison became the first general secretary of the all-Ireland CYM. In 1973 she helped to lead the 114-strong Irish delegation to the World Youth Festival in Berlin (German Democratic Republic).
She was a member of the National Executive Committee of the CPI from the early 1970s until her study, work and family commitments made it too difficult for her to continue. She contributed to policy-making regarding women in Ireland and, along with Margaret Bruton, Lynda Walker, and Jenny Williams, put together the CPI publication Breaking the Chains: Selected Writings of James Connolly on Women (1981).
In 1970 she took part in the breaking of the Falls curfew, when several hundred women marched in protest at being held within the area by the British army. By the 1970s she had begun work as full-time assistant organiser for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, based in an office on the corner of Castle Street and Marquis Street. Many of her party comrades—including Betty Sinclair, Barry and Terry Bruton, Jimmy and Edwina Stewart, Joe Deighan, Lynda Walker, Margaret Bruton, Joe Bowers, and many others—also played a significant role in this organisation. She helped to drive the well-oiled machine of the NICRA, organising meetings, rallies, leafleting, paper sales, and street committees.
Madge was strong in her support for the republican ideals of the United Irishmen, and it was in Bodenstown, Co. Kildare, site of Wolfe Tone’s grave, that she met her future husband, John Hobbs, a communist from Dublin. She always loved the north side of Belfast and later in life wanted to move back there, under the shadow of Cave Hill. With her husband she lived on the Antrim Road for a time before moving to Broadway, but Belfast was becoming a dangerous place, especially for a man with a Dublin accent, and they later moved to a flat in Lenadoon in west Belfast.
Madge linked the Civil Rights campaign in America and Ireland when the CYM protested against the framing of Angela Davis on a murder charge. Some of those involved in the civil rights campaign joined with the CYM in sending letters of protest to the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan. It was one of Madge’s ambitions to invite Angela Davis to Belfast; her comrades carried out this wish in 1994 when Angela came to Belfast at the invitation of the Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement.
Madge took part in the civil rights demonstration on Bloody Sunday in Derry, 1972 (she can be seen in television film, standing on the running-board of the lorry). Along with others she helped to organise the protest march in Newry the following week, and subsequently she organised the placing of a memorial in Derry to those who were killed.
In 1977, with Kevin McCorry, Edwina Stewart, and others, she organised the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. When the organisation folded up shortly after this she made sure that all the records were put in order and were donated to the political collection in the Linen Hall Library.
When her work with the NICRA finished she began to study law. She obtained a first-class honours degree from Queen’s University and became a barrister. She was respected in the profession for her ability to combine hard work with a down-to-earth approach to the law; her legal colleagues agree that she stood out as an exceptional barrister and gave much of herself to her work, standing out as a gifted advocate for human rights.
Towards the end of 1990 she took up employment with the Fair Employment Agency, and she looked forward to a job in which she could use these skills as well as having a more stable income for her family. This was not to be, as in January 1991 she was diagnosed with cancer. She died on 27 January 1991, at the early age of forty-one, leaving behind her husband and comrade John Hobbs and two beloved young children.
Madge Davison was an outstanding communist, outstanding orator, and excellent organiser. During her short life she took part in many struggles and activities. She taught typing in Twinbrook, taught law in the Falls Women’s Centre, was an active member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, an adviser to the Rape Crisis Centre (Belfast), and a member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement. Her comrades and friends will remember her for years to come.
Concluding his funeral tribute, Michael O’Riordan said: “Madge was motivated by a vision, a dream of a society in which there would be no sectarianism, no exploitation, one in which men and women would live in equality, one in which poverty would be abolished—in short, an Ireland free, united, and socialist.”
[LW]