Emma Mayfield-Smith

Vicky Phelan was born in Kilkenny in 1974, and became one of Ireland's most important patient-rights campaigners after a cervical smear test she'd received in 2011 had been incorrectly reported as normal. The young woman would be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014, she initially underwent treatment and received the all-clear. However, in 2017, she discovered that an internal audit of her original smear test had identified a false negative. Worse still, she had not been informed of the findings for approximately three years. By then, her cancer had returned and she was diagnosed with incurable Stage 4 disease. In April 2018, Vicky settled a High Court action against the American laboratory responsible for examining her smear sample for €2.5 million, without an admission of liability. But it was what happened next that changed everything. She refused to sign a confidentiality agreement. Instead of quietly accepting the settlement and getting on with her remaining time, she went public, revealing that other women had also received inaccurate screening results. More than 200 women were subsequently identified in the CervicalCheck controversy, many of whom had not been informed that their earlier screening results had been reviewed and found to be inaccurate. Vicky helped establish the 221+ CervicalCheck Patient Support Group, demanded accountability from the HSE and Government, and forced a national conversation about medical transparency, patient rights and institutional responsibility. Her campaigning prompted the Scally investigation, major scrutiny of the screening programme and a formal State apology in 2019. While undergoing treatment and travelling to America in search of experimental therapies, she continued campaigning for access to cancer drugs, better healthcare for women and, in her final years, the right to die with dignity. She also wrote her memoir, Overcoming, and became a recipient of the Freedom of Limerick. Vicky passed away at Milford Hospice on 14 November 2022, aged just 48, leaving behind her husband Jim and their two children. Vicky Phelan didn't set out to become an activist. She simply refused to accept that what happened to her, and to hundreds of other women, should be swept under the carpet. Her greatest legacy wasn't the compensation she received, the awards she collected or the public recognition she earned. It was her refusal to sign away the truth. And Ireland owes her a debt that cannot be measured in money. 221plus.ie mariekeating.ie/

On this day in 1990, the role of women in Irish politics changed forever with the election of our first female president, Mary Robinson. And it wasn’t just her gender which set the 7th Uachtarán na hÉireann apart from her predecessors. Stretching the legal boundaries and moral responsibilities of the essentially symbolic role to the very limit, she used her unique spotlight to challenge the establishment, raising human rights issues on both a national and international level. The former barrister and senator from Ballina had been courageously upsetting the apple cart for womens liberation in our nation for decades. She had been at the vanguard for liberalising an Ireland still very much under the thumb of the Catholic churches patriarchy. Robinson championed causes like the decriminalisation of homosexuality and legaling contraception and divorce. Whilst extremely popular by most metrics, some of her stances, especially her criticism of Ireland's immigration policy, caused controversy during a time of economic hardship and unemployment. Our first female president was often characterised, for better or worse, as an internationally focused activist. Regardless of your opinion of her priorities, her passion for equality and celebration of her countries history and culture are hard to deny. Her famous inauguration speech was a sign of a new era to come. President Robinson said ‘I was elected by men and women of all parties and none, by many with great moral courage who stepped out from the faded flag of the civil war and voted for a new Ireland, and above all by the women of Ireland, mná na hÉireann, who instead of rocking the cradle rocked the system, and who came out massively to make their mark on the ballot paper and on a new Ireland.’