Welcome to the Women’s Irish Network
Polly Devlin
Let’s see. 1998. Six women. A lunch. A fledgling idea.
The women, all feisty, all friends, and all Irish, though they live in England, are talking and you couldn’t get a word in edge-ways. At the lunch Mary Clancy and the late beloved Nessa O’Neill – the prime movers in the whole thing — come up with an idea that is blindingly obvious – but like all obvious ideas, blind till someone’s vision shows it to everyone else. They feel there is untapped potential in the abundant talent and energy of their many working Irish women friends. If all our individual Irish friends were brought together, something unique and valuable could be created – a unified and powerful organisation. A network to bring together women of Irish nationality and their friends to help each other, to enjoy each others company, to have a schedule of events that would draw on the many aspects of disparate interests and illuminate and share them, and –most importantly – to raise money for the charity, the Irish Youth Foundation.
A unified and powerful organisation, a network to bring together women of Irish nationality and their friends
And so the Women’s Irish Network was wished into existence, born in a spirit of generosity, optimism, determination and anticipation. From that first creative voluble meeting there developed the certainty that we all of us within WIN would help each other in every way possible in our business, our work, in our life. WIN, its apt and felicitous acronym was, for all its name, at first hardly a network at all —rather, a nettete, a thing in its infancy (Facebook hadn’t even been invented, email was almost still a novelty). Without Mary and Nessa, and the help and energy of the founding members it could not have survived but they were indomitable – never mind indefatigable –and soon we found out how many women of Irish nationality and descent were out there and found too what we all instinctively knew – that Irish women in England were making valuable contributions to the society in which they live and had an extraordinary range of talents.
The Irish women in England were making valuable contributions and had an extraordinary range of talents.
Membership rose year on year and through meetings, breakfasts, lunches and all kinds of exhilarating events we exchanged ideas, made new friends and benefitted from each other’s skills, knowledge and experience. Soon WIN was a unified and powerful group raising more and more money for charity every year.
From the beginning WIN has been blessed by goodwill, talent and energy and generosity from other sources – Irish companies, banks and especially successive Irish Ambassadors and their wives who have delivered help in every way – with invaluable moral as well as practical support and receptions at the glamorous Irish Embassy. We’ve had brilliant speakers including the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, Mary Harney, Terry Wogan, Fergal Keane, and Sir James Dyson. Baroness Blood has hosted evenings at the House of Lords which have been a great success and Ken Livingstone (honorary Irishman) when he was Mayor of London held receptions for us at the City Hall. There have been fashion events and delicious culinary evenings.
Yet none of this vindicatory sense of ourselves and our network is exclusive – there are associate members who are not Irish we welcome them as gifted contemporaries and vigorous contributors.
WIN lives up to its name – it hits targets all the way and is a resourceful, expressive and substantial organisation of busy bonded successful women. In the twelve years since we started we have succeeded in our aims beyond anything we could have hoped for. And perhaps most telling of all – WIN has raised nearly £300,000 for the Irish Youth Foundation since it’s inception.