Nora Harkin was an Irish republican socialist and activist.
23 Facts About Nora Harkin
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Nora Harkin was born Nora McGinley at her family farm in Breenagh, near Glenswilly, in County Donegal.
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Nora Harkin's parents were Michael and Bridget McGinley.
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Nora Harkin was introduced to Charlie Harkin in October 1932 at the Mansion House at a ceili raising money for the Republican Prisoners' Dependants' Fund.
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Charlie Nora Harkin left the IRA with Peadar O'Donnell, and was one of the founders of the Republican Congress in 1934.
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Nora Harkin married Charlie on 18 April 1938 in Stranorlar, County Donegal.
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Nora Harkin's husband had a long period of ill health before his death in 1979.
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Nora Harkin became a supporter of left-wing republicanism in rejection of the militaristic and chauvinistic nationalism associated with Eamon de Valera, compounded by the implicit subjugation of women in the 1937 Irish constitution.
9.
Nora Harkin was a member of the Republican Congress executive, taking part in protests and demonstrations which were cleared from the streets by Gardai with batons.
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Nora Harkin sat on the women's aid committee of the Irish Friends of the Spanish Republic, chaired by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.
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Nora Harkin was sympathetic to communism, but like Sheehy-Skeffington and Rosamond Jacob, she did not join the Communist Party as she believed she could accomplish more from the outside.
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Nora Harkin's singing was broadcast on Radio Eireann, and she acted at the Peacock Theatre and other venues in Dublin.
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Nora Harkin worked for Electrolux during the 1950s and 1960s.
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Nora Harkin made the first of her 18 visits to the USSR in 1968, and travelled the length of the country.
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Nora Harkin later described visiting the memorial to the 500,000 citizens who died during the siege of Leningrad as the most moving experience of her entire life.
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Alongside the society's treasurer, Angela McQuillan, Nora Harkin was seen as the society's driving force, seeing her elected chair in 1987.
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Nora Harkin was among the invited guests who attended the welcome of Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev to Shannon Airport by the Department of Foreign Affairs on 2 April 1989.
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On her 80th birthday in 1990, Nora Harkin was given a presentation by Gennadi Uranov, the Soviet ambassador to Ireland.
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Nora Harkin was a founding member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, and throughout the 1970s sat on the executive committee.
20.
Nora Harkin organised the sending of material support to prisoners and their families with Louise Parkinson, wife of Kader Asmal.
21.
Nora Harkin worked as a volunteer with the Irish Family Planning Association in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Nora Harkin first met Peadar O'Donnell at age 13 when she delivered a note from her father to him during the Civil War.
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Nora Harkin died at Ashbury Nursing Home, Kill Avenue, Blackrock, County Dublin on 7 June 2012, and is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery.