Thread by @ireland

In 2019, @IrelandEmbUSA curated an exhibit with @EPICMuseumCHQ celebrating Irish-American women's extraordinary contributions to the US. Today, a week on from #InternationalWomensDay & during #IrishAmericanHeritageMonth, I'll be posting stories of the 16 trailblazers we featured.

It's a long, long way from Tipperary to San Francisco. But that's where Rose O'Halloran moved to & where, as a brilliant amateur astronomer, she became the first person to see a giant sunspot emerge on the sun’s limb. More here: bit.ly/3vKipFk

The 'Mother of American Modernism' & one of the most gifted painters of the 20th century, Georgia O'Keefe was born in Wisconsin, but spent much of her remarkable career in New Mexico, the inspiration for much of her work.

As President Reagan said, in a speech written by Irish-American @Peggynoonannyc: ''We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey & waved goodbye & 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

In the summer of 1968, just weeks after the assassination of her brother, Bobby, Eunice Kennedy Shriver opened the first @SpecialOlympics in Chicago. The first such Olympics outside America were held in Ireland in 2003 & the organization is today led by Mayo woman @MaryDavisSO.

Sister of Charles Stuart & Anna Catherine, Fanny Isabel was known as the 'Patriot Poet'. Born in Avondale, Wicklow, she died in New Jersey at the tender age of 33.

Irish-American women have made huge contributions to US politics &, in the form of Rep. @marygayscanlon, @SenatorCollins & many others, continue to do so. Mae Nolan, daughter of Irish immigrants, was California's 1st Congresswoman & the 1st woman to head a Congressional Committee

In 1892, aged just 17, Annie Moore left her home in Cork with her two younger brothers & crossed the Atlantic - what Joyce called that 'bowl of bitter tears' - to New York, where she became the first person to pass through US immigration at Ellis Island.

Born in the Donegal Gaeltacht exactly a century ago, Kay McNulty spoke no English on her arrival in Philadelphia. A brilliant mathematician, she would become one of America's first computer programmers. Read more about her extraordinary life here: bit.ly/3sg77pO

Enlisted in the Illinois Infantry as Albert Cashier, Jennie Hodgers was one of the most famous female soldiers of the American Civil War, fighting in more than 40 battles. Cashier continued to live as a man after the war &, on passing, was given a soldier's burial.

Maeve Brennan, daughter of one of my predecessor's here in Washington DC, was a brilliant writer. As 'the Long Winded Lady', she contributed to the @NewYorker for several decades. She died tragically, but her short stories & columns are now recognized as essential.

Born in Dublin, Lola Ridge spent much of her childhood in New Zealand, before emigrating to the US, settling Greenwich Village. She has come to be recognized as one of the great poets of modern urban America.

Speaking to @VP Harris this week, our Taoiseach cited Kate Kennedy as an example of the contribution Irish women have made in America. Her 1874 campaign for ''equal pay for equal work'' led the California legislature to mandate female teachers receive the same pay as male ones.

The first lady of song, Ella's surname came from her father, who left her mother when Ella was a small girl. On her first trip to Dublin, asked if she had ever played to Irish audiences, she replied she had played to the greatest Irishman, also a Fitzgerald, 'our late President.'

As a politician and as @USAmbIreland, Margaret O'Shaughnessy Heckler blazed many trails. When she founded the Congressional Women's Caucus in 1977, it had 15 members. Today it has 121.

Mary Harris 'Mother' Jones, born in Cork, was a remarkable activist, who over her long life traversed first the Atlantic & then America. She noted once: ''My address is like my shoes. It travels with me . I abide where there is a fight against wrong.''