Michelene Sheehy Skeffington is one of my Notable Galway Women. 
Michelene is a botanist and plant ecologist who was a lecturer in Galway University. She has also become a champion of women’s equality by challenging the University for gender discrimination when she won a landmark case against her former employer of 34 years, NUI Galway. The Equality Tribunal found that the university had discriminated against the botanist for promotion because of her gender.
Of course, Micheline is from a renowned family and the name Sheehy Skeffington – wihout a hyphen – is well known in Ireland. Her grandparents Hanna and Francis Sheehy Skeffington played a significant role in Irish political and public life in the last century and sadly Francis, a pacifist, was killed by the British in 1916. Hanna is one of my heroines and I had written a blog on her. https://sheelanagigcomedienne.wordpress.com/tag/hanna-sheehy-skeffington/
In 1985 I had been involved with Irish Women in Wandsworth in putting on an exhibition on Charlotte Despard in Battersea Arts Centre. I visited the National Newspaper Library at Colindale and the Fawcett Library which was then based in the east end. I was contacted by Jill Norris editor of a series of biographies entitled Women of Our Time. She had found my name among the list of researchers at the Fawcett Library resulting in an exchange about Hanna as a worthy subject for the series. This led me to contact Andree Sheehy Skeffington who married Owen, Hanna and Frank’s only child and Michelene’s father, to find out if she knew of any proposed biography of Hanna. It transpired that there was one about to be published by Leah Levenson. Below is an extract from her letter. I treasure such hand-written letters.
Here is my blog on her. https://sheelanagigcomedienne.wordpress.com/tag/hanna-sheehy-skeffington/
Here is Michelene’s NUIG CV details.https://www.nuigalway.ie/science/school-of-natural-sciences/disciplines/botany-plant-science/research/plant-and-algal-marine-ecology/michelinesheehyskeffington/
Dr Sheehy Skeffington is a plant ecologist with an interest in terrestrial ecosystems, especially wetlands including turloughs, peatlands, heathlands, river flood-meadows and salt marshes. She also carries out research on sustainable farming for conservation, with special focus on grassland management for conservation.
Interests also include sustainable agriculture in the tropics, with publications on Indonesian and Cuban sustainable forest and agricultural management.
There is a list of her published articles and books.
I have been following Micheline in her gender discrimination challenge to NUIG and contributed to the crowd funding. https://www.rte.ie/news/2014/1117/660112-nuig/
National University of Ireland Galway has been instructed by the Equality Tribunal to immediately promote a female academic and pay her €70,000 in damages. The ruling comes after the tribunal found that the college had discriminated against her on the grounds of her gender.
Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington applied for a senior lectureship post at the university in 2009 but was not appointed. In its ruling in favour of Dr Sheehy Skeffington, the tribunal described NUIG’s interview process as “ramshackle”.
It ordered the college to review its policies and procedures in relation to promotions and to report back. Dr Sheehy Skeffington is a highly qualified botanist, widely published, and described as an “inspirational” lecturer by a former student. After 19 years as a college lecturer at NUIG, she applied to become a senior lecturer for the fourth time.
She was not appointed and after an unsuccessful internal appeal, she took a case based on gender discrimination to the tribunal. The tribunal found in her favour, citing both direct and indirect discrimination.
It found that on paper promotion to senior lecturer at NUIG seemed to be fair. But it said its implementation has fallen short. There was no training for interviewers, no meeting to discuss candidates. The suggestions of the external interviewer on the panel were ignored. The fact that there was no marking scheme for the interview, it said, highlighted the “ramshackle” approach.
The tribunal said it was worrying that one male candidate who was promoted was not even eligible to apply for the position. It found that men at the university had a one in two chance of being promoted to senior lecturer. Female academics’ chances were less than one in three.
The tribunal ordered the university to retrospectively appoint Dr Sheehy Skeffington to the post and to pay her damages of €70,000.
The university has said it accepts the tribunal’s decision “unreservedly” and it will “take immediate steps to implement the … findings”.
It said: “The University very much regrets the distress caused to Dr Sheehy Skeffington in this matter, thanks her for her contribution over many years and wishes her well in the future.”
One of her predecessors was Professor Maureen de Valera who was my botany lecturer in 1964/65. (Being the only botanist on the staff, de Valéra taught all of the botanical courses, with the work load doubling when the lectures were offered in Irish. She was the first Chair and Professor of Botany at UCG. Her specialism was algae.)
https://www.nuigalway.ie/media/nuigalwayie/…/Path-Breaking-Women—Brochure.pd.
There has been a Gender Equality Task Force appointed and they have produced their findings.
The Task Force concluded that the current climate in NUI Galway is not conducive to ensuring that all staff are supported to reach their full potential. The Micheline Sheehy Skeffington case was the second gender equality case in which the Equality Tribunal found against the University in 2014. Gender inequality is evident across the University, among academic and support staff, with the result that many women feel undervalued and ignored. At a human level, this is clearly unacceptable but for the University this represents a significant loss of talent and undermines the University’s commitment to excellence.
Micheline has now retired from NUIG but has donated her compensation to the continuing fight for other women lecturers. Although the NUIG has accepted the recommendations of the Task Force which was slammed according to the Connaught Tribune.
.
http://connachttribune.ie/union-slams-nuig-gender-equality-report-860/
“The report fails to address, in any meaningful way, the discrimination and unfair treatment faced by administrative, general operative and technical staff, academics and others on precarious contracts or casually employed, researchers or students. The few recommendations regarding some of these staff or students are token gestures or misguided proposals which may make matters worse.
“The report proposes actions which may result in more academic women being promoted to senior positions. However, gender quotas are not a long-term solution to the underlying problem of institutional discrimination across all grades of staff. Quotas will not resolve the fundamental, underlying problem of unfair treatment of those with caring responsibilities, a majority of whom are women.”
Micheline has embarked on another project which is repeating the epic lecture tour of the USA undertaken by her grandmother Hanna publicising what had happened to her grandfather Francis -a pacifist – was shot by a British firing squad during the Easter Rising. Hanna is Ireland’s most famous suffragette.
The four taking the case are Dr Margaret Hodgins, Dr Sylvie Lannegrand, Dr Adrienne Gorman and Dr Róisín Healy. The fifth female lecturer, Dr Elizabeth Tilley is pursuing a separate case in the Labour Court.They had all been deemed eligible for promotion to Senior Lecturer posts in 2009 but were all turned down.
President Jim Browne and NUIG having insisted all these years that it was for the five women to prove the injustice in court as there was nothing management could do to put it right, this hearing for four of the women’s cases would have shown management were attempting to stop the women from doing that.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hanna-and-me-passing-on-the-flame#/
When her husband Francis was killed despite him being a pacifist, Hanna undertook an epic lecture tour of the US, publicising what had happened. This autumn her granddaughter, Micheline, also known for her fight for gender equality and justice, is repeating Hanna’s tour and they plan to film it for a documentary.
She says “This autumn, 100 years on, I will retrace my grandmother, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington’s epic lecture tour of the US. This tour was so important for Ireland’s fight for independence, yet has largely been forgotten. I want to publicise what she did by making a documentary of my trip. I will spend three months speaking in the places she visited and, like her, my tour will be funded by the organisations and communities that host me. But I also want to film the tour and the people and places I encounter.
I will visit places associated with her feminist friends, like Jane Addams, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Emma Goldman.We’ll film key sections of the tour to provide a basis for the production of a full documentary on Hanna’s journey. We hope to have this broadcast during 2018, the anniversary of Irish women getting the vote – which happened because of the actions of suffragettes like Hanna. We are seeking funding simply for the filming of the tour so that the eventual documentary can weave the thread between Hanna’s epic journey then, Irish-Americans and feminist activism today, and Hanna’s suffrage activity in Ireland. It resonates with what my father, Owen, did to champion the cause of human rights in 20th century Ireland, as well as my own recent fight for gender equality.”
Micheline’s blog: https://michelinesthreeconditions.wordpress.com/
The last entry The mediation that has been ongoing between NUI Galway and the four female academics taking High Court cases for gender discrimination in the 08/09 promotion round to senior lecturer has finally ended in failure…… With the meditation over, Micheline and this campaign can again publicise NUI Galway’s gender discrimination. Micheline’s lecture tour will ensure there are many opportunities, starting with coverage in Ireland during August before she goes, then in the US with media coverage of the tour there, and then again here when she returns in November. Every time she speaks to the media or gives one of the many lectures about her grandmother’s famous tour, Micheline will also reference the campaign and the injustice for the five women. AS will the documentary about Hanna she plans. You can support what she is doing and help highlight the gender discrimination at NUI Galway by contributing to the crowd funding to film the tour, for the documentary Hanna and Me- Passing on the Flame.
The row rumbles on as NUIG is to receive official recognition for its work to advance gender equality. In May the college, along with Maynooth University , received the internationally-recognised Athena Swan bronze award, which demonstrates a solid foundation in eliminating gender bias despite being at the centre of this high-profile gender discrimination row. The Irish Times May 7th quotes : ‘Dr Sheehy Skeffington said she was surprised at the bronze award given that four other female lecturers were involved in High Court cases in which they allege they unfairly missed out on promotions. She said she felt actions by women over alleged gender discrimination had led to recent improvements.’
Under new rules, higher-education institutions are required to have bronze awards by the end of next year to remain eligible for Irish research funding. Latest available figures show women are significantly under-represented in the senior ranks of most of the State’s universities. While just over half of all of lecturers in universities are female, these numbers fall dramatically at higher grades such as associate professor (29 per cent) and professor (21 per cent).
Many of us petitioned Athena Swan against awarding but obviously the promises to be good in the future seems to have worked!
Whatever happens NUIG doesn’t look good in terms of its gender equality. Micheline succeeded in getting the funding for the tour and film. The the five women lecturers finally won their cases and there is a new President of NUIG and we hope that gender equality will continue to improve there. Congratulations to all the women and their supporters who fought for this and I am looking forward to the completed video of Michelene’s trip. Michelene features in my Notable Galway Women walk for Heritage week 2019.
sheelanagigcomedienne
Jeanne Rathbone 
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