About us
Back in 1998 that Nessa O’Neill and I went to a DEMOS day at the National Film Theatre on the Embankment to listen to a number of eminent women talk about the various problems that women encountered in the workplace and how they could be overcome. The line-up was pretty impressive, as well as professors and sociologists people like Anita Roddick, of Body Shop fame and Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson Publishing spoke about their experiences.
Nessa and I came away enthralled and enthused and she said that we should try and do something similar for women within the Irish community. We organised a number of lunches and suppers with different Irish women who might be interested in creating a network or Irish women who would not only support and encourage each other but also educate and entertain each other. The ladies we approached included Norma Smurfit, Polly Devlin, Caroline Marland, Avril MacCrory, Ethna Lee and Norah Casey and we had such fun eating, drinking, chatting and laughing during many encounters but we never got around to formulating any precise plan of action……….Eventually however we decided to hold an event and see what came out of it.
We decided to call our enterprise the Women’s Irish Network as we felt that WIN had a good ring to it, but we also agreed to be inclusive and accept members who were not necessarily women (i.e. men! ) and not necessarily Irish – it was enough that they wanted to be Irish.
Our first event was to be a breakfast at the Langham Hotel and our first keynote speaker was to be James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame. Unfortunately when we had sold 90 tickets and it was only 2 days before the event, we learnt that Mr. Dyson could not speak to us as he had to be in court. At very short notice we cajoled and coerced one of our committee members, Polly Devlin to speak instead. Polly was an enormous success – funny, profound and profane and WIN was born.
Later that same year, one of the highlights of WIN’s history occurred when President Mary McAleese came to speak to us over a lunch for 250 people.
A number of years have now passed since the joyful birth of WIN . There have been sadness– the loss of my darling husband David, a resolute WIN member and the loss last year of our wonderful Nessa with all her energy, imagination and enthusiasm, but there have been great events and wonderful camaraderie and between us all we have raised almost £300,000 for the Irish youth Foundation.
Thank you to the wonderful WIN committee with their ability to create interesting and enjoyable happenings which our members want to attend and thanks to our membership who support us and make it all worthwhile. It has been a rewarding journey.