Many of the country’s leading business women and academics will gather this morning in the historic boardroom of RCSI to mark International Women’s Day and to participate in an event entitled ‘Enabling Leadership – 100 years on from the revolutionary women of 1916’.

Guests, including RCSI Medical Student and current Rose of Tralee, Elysha Brennan will be welcomed by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Hannah McGee and the forum will be chaired by academic and broadcaster Dr Aoibhinn Ni Suilleabhain. Panelists include Head of Nursing and Midwifery at RCSI Professor Zena Moore, CEO of CPL Resources Plc, Anne Heraty, CEO of Keelings Fruit, Caroline Keeling as well as RCSI Council Member and Consultant Surgeon, Deborah McNamara and Professor of Molecular Medicine, Catherine Godson. 

Topics such as education, resilience, voice impact, coaching and mentoring and unconscious bias will be discussed in the impressive surroundings of the Boardroom of RCSI. This location is of particular relevance to this year’s centenary commemorations as the building was occupied by rebel forces led by the nationalist and suffragette Countess Markievicz who went on to become one of the first women in the world to hold a cabinet position as Minister for Labour of the Irish Republic, 1919-1922. There will be a number of 1916 memorabilia on display around this iconic room and the door into the Boardroom is still scarred from the bullet holes of the Easter Rising.

The forum will commence following a buffet breakfast when Professor McGee will set the context in terms of the Revolutionary Women of 1916 including Margaret Skinnider, reportedly the only female wounded in the action and she will outline the pioneering role that RCSI has played throughout the years in advancing gender equality. For example, in 1893 the first female fellow, Emily Dickson was appointed, and in 1885 Agnes Shannon was the first female medical student registered in a British or Irish Medical School. Fast forward to 2010, when the college elected the first female Dean of a Medical School in Ireland (Prof. Hannah McGee) followed later that year by the first female President of a Royal Surgical College in the British Isles (Prof. Eilis McGovern).

Promising to be inspiring and informative, the forum is a key event in the ongoing centenary commemorations taking place in RCSI throughout the year.