By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
A well-known suffragist and advocate for Irish freedom chose to live in Utah and start her family here just over a century ago.
Catherine Mary Flanagan (1888-1927) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the second of seven siblings. Her parents had left Ireland a few years earlier because of her father James Flanagan’s involvement in the Irish independent movement.
When her father died, Flanagan had to start working at an early age to help support her family. She developed skills as a bookkeeper and a stenographer and in 1915, the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) hired Flanagan as its office manager and secretary.
Flanagan thrived in the role. She organized new suffrage leagues, set up mass meetings, and tirelessly lobbied public officials to support women’s right to vote.
Using her personal vacation time in 1917, Flanagan joined members of the National Woman’s Party to picket at the White House in Washington. Dubbed the “Silent Sentinels,” the women protested President Woodrow Wilson’s failure to endorse the suffrage amendment.
Mobs of men attacked the peaceful protesters while local police— ostensibly under orders from the Wilson administration—arrested Flanagan and five other suffragists. Refusing to pay a fine, Flanagan spent 30 days at a notorious Virginia workhouse.
Some at the CWSA condemned the protest, but Mrs. Thomas N. Hepburn (mother of actress Katherine Hepburn) defended Flanagan. Hepburn said, “If she prefers to spend her vacation working to make our own country safe for democracy…it behooves those who are less public spirited to try to comprehend her unselfish devotion.”
Once released from the workhouse, Flanagan published an account of her ordeal that was read throughout the country and generated widespread public support for the suffrage movement. A year later even President Wilson endorsed the effort.
When Tennessee became the critical 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920 and thus give women the vote, Flanagan was there working for the cause. When Connecticut ratified the amendment soon after, Flanagan personally presented the certification papers to the United States Secretary of State.
The years 1919-21 also were pivotal to another cause near and dear to Flanagan’s heart—the Irish battle for independence. In 1920, English soldiers raided the Cork city hall in Ireland and arrested Mayor Terence MacSwiney for sedition. In protest, he went on a hunger strike and died in prison a few months later.
In 1921 the mayor’s sister Mary MacSwiney came to the United States to tell his story and garner support for the emerging Irish Republic. Flanagan served as MacSwiney’s secretary and traveling companion during the speaking tour across America.
Flanagan and MacSwiney visited Salt Lake City, Utah in March 1921. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that MacSwiney told a large group at the Hotel Utah, “[E]very drop of Irish blood will be spilled in this fight, if necessary, as the true Irish have decided that if freedom is not given them now it is the last stand against England.”
MacSwiney also urged the formation of local groups to raise money and support the cause. A Salt Lake City Irish American widower named William H. Leary—who also just happened to be the Dean of the University of Utah Law School—attended the speech and signed up to serve on the state committee.
Bill Leary’s first wife had died two years earlier, leaving him with five children ranging in age from 5 months to six years old. During the tragic year that followed, he also lost two of his toddler sons.
Flanagan and Leary met during MacSwiney’s visit to Utah and discovered they had much in common. Among other things, Flanagan was friends with the Irish independence leader Eamon de Valera and Leary had introduced him to local officials during a 1919 dinner at the Hotel Utah.
After Flanagan left town, she and Leary corresponded in writing for several months. They must have been good letter writers, because in October 2021, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the two were married at the local Cathedral of the Madeleine in a private ceremony.
Leary’s students celebrated the good news by carrying him on their shoulders into the law school where classes were cancelled. The University president joined Flanagan and Leary and the entire law school for an impromptu reception.
Besides her obvious affection for her husband, Flanagan probably felt comfortable in Salt Lake City for another reason. When Utah became a state in 1896, its constitution granted women the right to vote and hold office, making it only the third state to do so.
Flanagan and Leary had three children together, and she helped raise the children from his first marriage too. Their son Peter served as a Utah judge and daughter Virginia was an accomplished law professor who focused on the study of human rights.
Much too young, Flanagan died at the old Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City on August 3, 1927, due to complications from an ectopic pregnancy. She was just 38.
She now rests with her husband and some of her children at Salt Lake City’s Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery. For all her good and hard work, Catherine Mary Flanagan Leary was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020.
(Photo from the Library of Congress. Catherine Flanagan and other suffragists arrested in Washington DC in 1917.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
