An initiative called See Her Elected (SHE) is working to empower women across rural Ireland to get their names on the ballot paper for the 2024 local elections, through a number of workshops and classes.
SHE was formed to engage with women in rural regions and identify what barriers exist for them in taking the leap into politics, all in a bid to achieve equal representation on county councils.
Increases in the number of female county councillors and TDs were noted during recent elections, however the change in these numbers has largely taken place throughout urban constituencies.
Across rural Ireland, women remain vastly underrepresented on the ballot paper.
During the 2019 local elections, as women gained 48% of the seats on the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, representation of women on the Longford County Council dropped to just 5%.
Currently, only 242 of Ireland’s 949 local councillors are female, amounting to just 25.5%. The low numbers can be seen despite the fact that a high number of women across the country are heavily involved in the running of community organisations, sports clubs and various other committees.
Dr. Michelle Maher, programme manager with SHE called this involvement “politics with a small ‘p’ ” and said that it can often be daunting for these people to make the leap into something more formal, even when they already have the skills that would be required.
That formal role does not necessarily have to be a candidacy though, as Maher explained.
She regularly points out that every person running in a local election has a team of campaign managers, social media coordinators and volunteers behind them, roles which the project is also encouraging women to get involved in.
“You don’t necessarily have to put your name on the ballot paper, you can support another women to get elected,” Mairead O’Shea communications manager with See Her Elected told Agriland.
“There’s a job for everybody and that’s part of what we focus on in the workshops we run, which are called SHEschool.”
Every month, the SHE project, which is primarily focussed on the 2024 local elections, run a series of free, online, one-hour workshops that offer people an introduction to politics.
A number of more advanced classes are also available, which focus on canvassing, campaign and communication strategies.
Flexibility is central in SHEschool so that as many women as possible can take part and comfortably learn more about what local politics involves.
“We run our classes at four different times of day on four different days of the week and they fit into women’s lifestyles, it’s very accessible,” said O’Shea.
“It’s a very grassroots approach where we are led by the needs and the wants of the women.”
The project is running the workshops in tandem with the recent publication of a practical guidebook called ‘A guide to running in the 2024 local elections’, which has been made available to download on its website.
Maher, O’Shea and a number of other representatives ran a stand at the National Ploughing Championships last month in Ratheniska, Co. Laois, which Agriland visited and featured in its livestream of the three-day event.
O’She said that the project garnered great attention over the course of the event from women all over rural Ireland, many of which come from farming backgrounds.
The event also presented the representatives with an ideal opportunity to engage with senators, TDs and MEPs from all political parties to help spread the message of the project.
The project continues to report strong interest and traction since, with more than 500 people now on its mailing list. It’s still encouraging others to get in contact and said there is still plenty of women yet to take their place in local politics.