For the Love of Celia
Home ruler, suffragist and one of the foremost portrait painters of her era, Sarah Cecilia Harrison, affectionately known as Celia, was the first female Councillor for Dublin Corporation. Art historian Dr Margarita Cappock has more …
Portrait of the Artist, 1890 Oil on panel.
Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1863-1941) was a compelling woman who broke new ground – as an artist, an activist, a suffragist and as the first woman to be elected as a City Councillor for Dublin in 1912. Harrison came from a prosperous Northern Irish Protestant family steeped in politics. The family had a strong national inclination and she was a grand-niece of the United Irishman, Henry Joy McCracken, and his sister Mary Ann McCracken, a radical and philanthropist.
After the death of Harrison’s father in 1873, the family relocated to London and at the age of 15, Harrison enrolled in the recently established Slade School of Art in London, where she spent the next seven years, learning her craft as a painter. Her early talent as an artist was noted at the Slade and she won several prizes.
Although London-based up until the age of forty, Harrison’s passion was for Ireland and she was a regular visitor to the country. In 1904, she moved to Dublin permanently, where she rapidly earned herself a reputation as one of Ireland’s leading portraitists. Her work was realistic and meticulous and she painted portraits
Home ruler, suffragist and one of the foremost portrait painters of her era, Sarah Cecilia Harrison, affectionately known as Celia, was the first female Councillor for Dublin Corporation. Art historian Dr Margarita Cappock has more... of many significant individuals. Harrison was also one of the staunchest supporters and closest allies of Sir Hugh Lane (1875- 1915), the Irish art connoisseur, collector and dealer, in his campaign for the establishment of a modern art gallery for Ireland. She worked tirelessly to this end.
In addition to her artistic career, Harrison became well-known for her social activism and involvement in a multitude of philanthropic, political and civic campaigns - the range of activities that she was engaged in is truly remarkable.
Harrison believed that an entitlement to employment, adequate housing and even access to modern art, were all compatible aspirations.
Her strikingly modern and enlightened approach was married with a strong degree of tenacity, pragmatism and an unstinting work ethic. For over three decades,
Harrison was a champion of the poor, unemployed and marginalised citizens in Dublin and she was vocal in her criticism of any complacency on the part of the authorities to improve the lot of the working classes.
Harrison was passionate about the rights of women and the needs of children and saw the tenement crisis as being at the root of many of the city’s problems. She broke new ground when she became the first female Councillor for Dublin Corporation in 1912 and as a Councillor for three years, her primary concern was the tenement dwellers and the unemployed. She was shrewd in her use of the press to raise awareness of her causes and was a regular correspondent and author of articles to many newspapers and journals. This brought her in to conflict with powerful individuals such as William Martin Murphy, the successful Irish businessman who owned the best-selling Irish Daily Independent, amongst other business interests, and was a formidable opponent.
Things became so heated that on one occasion, Harrison accosted Murphy as he left his office on Dame Street!
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
As a feminist, Harrison consistently championed women’s rights and was one of the Irish suffrage movement’s most prominent activists, as a campaigner, speaker and organiser until 1918, when Irish women voted in a national election for the first time. Harrison had a powerful and compelling personality. She was articulate, tenacious and passionate but she always eschewed militancy. At almost 6ft 2 in height, she was physically imposing and frequently dressed in black. With the addition of a hat, adding to her height, she cut a distinctive, striking figure in the city.
Traces of Harrison’s legacy can be found around Dublin city. Her paintings hang in the Hugh Lane Gallery, the National Gallery, National Maternity Hospital, Royal College of Surgeons, the Law Library and City Hall.
The Haslam Memorial Bench in St Stephen’s Green, that many pass by daily, is thanks to Harrison who instigated a campaign to have a permanent memorial to the suffragist couple, Anna and Thomas Haslam.