May O'Callaghan
{{Short description|Irish suffragette and communist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = May O'Callaghan
| image =
| caption = fair use image
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1881|08|14}}
| birth_place = Wexford
| death_date = 1973
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| other_names =
| known_for =
| education = University of Vienna
| employer =
| occupation =
| party = Communist Party (British Section of the Third International)
| spouse =
| partner =
| children =
| parents =
| relatives =
| signature =
| website =
| footnotes =
| nationality = Irish
}}
May O'Callaghan (14 August 1881 – 1973) known to many as O'C{{Cite web|url=http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/index.php/biographies/a-c/c/111-rose-cohen|title=Cohen Rose|website=www.grahamstevenson.me.uk|language=en-gb|access-date=2018-01-02}} was a suffragette and communist.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3MF3DgAAQBAJ&q=O%27Callaghan&pg=PA161|title=American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream|last=Mickenberg|first=Julia L.|date=2017-04-25|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226256269|pages=299|language=en}}
Life
Julia Mary 'May' O'Callaghan was born on 14 August 1881 in Wexford, Ireland, the youngest of four children to Catholics Julia and Patrick O'Callaghan.{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Vfn9zzqn0 |title=To Abduct the Mistresses of the Commissars |date=11 Sep 2017 |medium=video |language=en |publisher=Connolly Mediagroup |time=5:17 |people=Maurice Casey (speaker)}}{{Cite book |last=Casey |first=Maurice J. |title=Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals |date=2024 |publisher=Footnote Press |isbn=9781804440995 |location=London |publication-date=2024 |language=English}} The family moved to Ballinsesker soon after she was born. Her father worked as a Head Constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary and her parents encouraged her interest in education. She studied Modern Languages at the University of Vienna, following an older sister to the city. Between 1901 and 1914 taught English and gave lectures on the Irish Literary Revival.
In 1916 she was writing letters on behalf of East London Federation of Suffragettes.{{Cite web|url=http://letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie/diyhistory/scripto/transcribe/3303/8579|title=1916 Letters {{!}}|website=letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-03}} This was a socialist suffragette organisation that broke away from Women's Social and Political Union. During this time she shared a flat with sisters Nellie and Rose Cohen, and Daisy Lansbury.{{Cite web |title=The Suffragettes Who Became Communists {{!}} History Today |url=https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/suffragettes-who-became-communists |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=www.historytoday.com}}
Along with Nellie Cohen, between 1919 and 1921 she ran the office of the People's Russian Information Bureau (established by Sylvia Pankhurst). She was also working as the sub-editor of the Worker's Dreadnought at this time.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vd-OAQAAQBAJ&q=%22May+O%27Callaghan%22&pg=PA165|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics And Political Activism|last=Winslow|first=Barbara|date=2013-10-18|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781134220106|pages=118|language=en}} In 1919 the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International) was founded in the flat that she shared with Nellie Cohen and Daisy Lansbury.
In 1924 she travelled to Moscow where she stayed until 1928 and worked in the Translation Section of the Comintern Press Department. She lived in Hotel Lux during this time.
References
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:OCallaghan, May}}
Category:20th-century Irish women writers