User:AifricRyan/sandbox

Career

Kathleen Balfe had a long and prosperous career throughout her lifetime. One year after the Easter Rising marked the start of the War of Independence. Balfe founded the Cumann na mBan in Drogheda. Cumann na mBann was a voluntary women’s organisation which upheld a forceful role in visiting prisoners in RIC barracks. The volunteering members of the organisation would frequently pass on information to republican forces regarding British military activity. It is believed that Balfe on one particular occasion carried a machine gun in her coat to Ballapousta for a planned attack on the barracks in Ardee. Balfe’s husband died just short of his 40th birthday and she was forced to return to dress making. Balfe, an avid Fine Gael supporter was the first woman to be elected to the Drogheda Corporation, her local council, in 1967 at the age of 74. She retired at the age of 81 and passed away ten years later.