Guest Blogger: Yvonne McDermott

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Yvonne McDermott (left) as today's guest blogger.
Yvonne is a Ph.D. candidate and doctoral research fellow at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland-Galway, where she is also a Lecturer on Children's Rights. Her research focuses on due process in international criminal proceedings, and her guest post below examines the jurisprudential doctrine of abuse of process, an ongoing issue in 3 International Criminal Court cases now proceeding against defendants from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yvonne holds a Diploma in Irish (Gaeilge), a Bachelor of Corporate Law and a Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 2008, Yvonne earned an LL.M. cum laude in Public International Law from Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her scholarship includes the journal article Victims and International Law: Remedies in the Courtroom (2009), for which last year she was named the inaugural recipient of the Böhler Franken Koppe Wijngaarden advocaten Hague Academic Coalition Award for Young Professionals. Yvonne is the Managing Editor of the Oxford Reports in International Criminal Law.
Yvonne chooses to dedicate her post to 2 Irish women. Both "are perhaps better known for their associations with famous men," she writes, but both "deserve to be recognised in their own right." Yvonne continues:

Mary Ann McCracken [left; 1770-1886], the sister of executed United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken, was born in Belfast. She too was committed to social reform, and was a dedicated philanthropist and activist, committed to helping the poor of Belfast,
pioneering for equal rights for women and the abolition of slavery. There are descriptions of her at the age of 88 handing out leaflets at the docks of Belfast to those heading for the southern ports of the United States, where slavery was still practiced.
Maud Gonne [below right; 1866-1953] was born in England but her legacy is cemented as a pivotal player in the Irish struggle for independence. She was particularly involved in countering evictions and in famine relief in counties Connaught in the late 19th century. She was the founder of Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), an Irish nationalist feminist organisation, in 1900, and was fiercely devoted to the promotion and preservation of Irish culture through the arts. In spite of her own achievements, Maud Gonne is often celebrated as the muse of William Butler Yeats and the mother of diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Seán MacBride.

Today Gonne (prior post) and McCracken join the foremothers' list just below our "visiting from..." map in the righthand column -- and thus also join what Yvonne aptly calls "the wonderful Mná na hÉireann so honoured on this blog before me." The "Women of Ireland" to whom she refers are foremothers Grace O'Malley/Gráinne Ní Mháille, Eva Gore-Booth, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Eibhlín Dhubh Ní Chonaill, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, and Constance Markiewicz.

Heartfelt welcome!

On January 27

On this day in ...

... 1914 (95 years ago today), "Lacking any military support," Haiti's civilian President, Port-au-Prince lawyer and Senator Michel Oreste, resigned and went into exile aboard a German ship. At once Marines from Germany, France, and the United States landed in Haiti's capital city. A Haitian military leader was installed as President, but his reign also would be short-lived. (map credit)

... 1904 (105 years ago today), in Paris, France, a son was born to an expatriate couple who in a little over a decade would go on to become icons in the Irish revolutionary movement: Irish-born Major John MacBride, whom the British would execute for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising, and his wife Maud Gonne, described as "an English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress, best remembered for her turbulent relationship with William Butler Yeats." (Had this IntLawGrrl not chosen a certain 16th C. Irishwoman as her transnational foremother, the nod well might've gone to Gonne, ally of IntLawGrrl Fiona de Londras' foremother Countess Markievicz, and the subject of a superb biography by Dr. Margaret Ward.) The couple divorced; their son, Seán Mac Bride, went on to a distinguished global career. Among his achievements: Ireland's Minister of External Affairs and President of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers from 1949 to 1950, a position from which he spearheaded adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights; a cofounder of Amnesty International; Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists; a drafter of the Constitution of the Organization of African Unity; and co-recipient of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize. Following his death in 1988, he was buried in Dublin cemetery near his wife and son -- and his mother. (credit for mid-20th C. photo of Maud Gonne and Seán MacBride)