TURNING THE TIDE: PROTEST PHOTOGRAPHS & RESISTANCE FROM THE ARCHIVE OF ROSE COMISKEY

by: Orla Fitzpatrick , June 25, 2022

This paper considers the photographic practice undertaken by Rose Comiskey, whose images of street protest depict the major issues affecting Irish women in the late twentieth century. [1] Spanning from 1982 to 1992, they reflect challenging times, during which issues such as abortion, the anti-apartheid movement, and Travellers’ rights were aired through collective action on the streets of the country’s capital, Dublin. Comiskey was part of the women’s movement, and her images provide a record of, and bear witness to, its activities. Working independently from the mainstream media, her black and white images have a particular resonance for contemporary activists whose long fight for abortion rights culminated in the 2018 repeal of the constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion.

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“echoes of the earlier Contraceptive Train which took place in May 1971, when members of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, in protest against the law prohibiting the importation and sale of contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland, travelled to Belfast to purchase contraceptives. It also has a resonance with the work of Joanne O’Brien, who depicted Irish women’s abortion journeys, and that of the Belfast contemporary activist and artist, Emma Campbell, whose series When they put out their hands like scales (2013), re-enacts such journeys. The sistership was an act of civil disobedience as it was illegal at the time to bring such information into Ireland. Following speeches, purple helium balloons were released on the dock.”