1749-1937. Violence Ridicule and Silence. An inter-institutional exhibition plotting Irish women's road to the vote in 1918.

The recent interest in the history of female suffrage in Ireland is welcome, although much delayed. In this centenary year the Library of Trinity College Dublin is delighted to have contributed to the work of the Houses of the Oireachtas Vótáil 100 programme, in curating this exhibition, in collaboration with several sister institutions. The exhibition seeks to highlight a number of aspects to the story; its origins in the eighteenth century; the fact that the suffrage movement was an all-island activity and very much influenced by activities in England; the use of violence and ridicule to prevent women from making their voices heard in public spaces, a form of silencing which continues today; and the difficulty there exists in retrieving women's voices from the archives due to the destruction of their records. The exhibition ends with the deep disappointment occasioned by the misogynistic 1937 Constitution which reneged on the equality ideals of the early political activists.