Mary Maloney came from Dublin. She was a suffragette and made her way from her home in London to Dundee to literally noise up Winston Churchill during his campaigning to become an MP. It’s worth mentioning that her choosing such a noisy form of protest would be a riskier tactic today in the UK due to last year’s stealthily introduced Policing Act. The all encompassing ‘noise trigger’ clause could now make a criminal out of any modern day Mary La Belle.

 

Over the years I have taken part in and helped to organise many peaceful protests. On occasion, I have felt frustration that people are carrying banners identical to those of 20 years earlier and beyond. There have been moments when for me, the importance of showing up to a rainy George Square was not really because I believed there would be an instant change to government policy on war, human rights or climate change. It was because standing shoulder to soggy shoulder, with people who have also not given up on shouting in to the void, reaffirmed my faith in humankind. In these days of fear-mongering and ‘doom scrolling’, there are many brilliant humans who do not succumb to cynicism and feelings of powerlessness. They maintain hope and momentum, raise their voices and refuse to become numb and silent.

 

I show up because, every now and again, we reach that critical mass and real positive change can and does occur. These things can take a long time. Women had already been campaigning for decades by the time Mary Maloney rang her bell. It would be a further decade before some women over 30 were given the vote and 20 years on before women were able to vote on the same terms as men.

 

In 1928, women finally equally had a say in which of the 98% male candidates should be elected to govern them.