Women’s rights campaigner who took action against the State over equal pay in public service

Joy O’Farrell, who has died aged 86, was a women’s rights campaigner who was instrumental in getting equal pay for women in the public service.

She also worked for many other national and international social justice causes in a full, active and at times difficult life.

Joy McNamee was born and raised in Skerries, one of a family of 11. Her father, Thomas, was headmaster of the local boys’ national school and her mother, Mary Jo Arnold, the daughter of Capt John Arnold of Skerries, who drowned at sea, was a homemaker.

Like many of her siblings, she won a county council scholarship to the local convent secondary school, where she proved a pupil of acknowledged ability, especially in mathematics. She had the ability, but not the means, to go to university.

On finishing school she joined the Civil Service.

She met and married Brendan O’Farrell in 1952; he was to become chief accountant of the ESB and financial controller of CIÉ. But in line with practice at the time, his wife had to give up her Civil Service career on marriage.

Travel

The couple were international in their outlook and loved other languages and cultures. Availing of Brendan’s travel concessions from CIÉ, they took their family on holidays to France and Spain at a time when such travel was quite unusual. All six of their children went to the newly opened St Killian’s German School. They were active on the school council and Brendan O’Farrell was awarded the Federal Order of Merit by the West German government for intercultural services.

The couple also shared a commitment to social justice and instilled those values in their children, campaigning for Travellers’ rights, food aid for Biafra and against apartheid, taking their older children to protest when the South African rugby team visited Dublin.

Brendan O’Farrell died in 1972, aged 48, leaving a widow with six children aged from seven to 19. She had no income, due to a narrow application of his pension-contribution rules she found difficult to understand.

She had to re-enter the Civil Service at the lowest rung. Over the next 20 years she worked her way up, coming first in every Civil Service exam she took.

She was not afraid to take a risk, taking out a bank loan to buy and convert a house in Donnybrook into flats, creating an asset that helped to fund her children’s lives and education for 40 years.

A firm believer in women's equality, she became president of the Women's Political Association and a member of the first Labour Women's National Council.

Mary Robinson

When the government announced its intention to delay the implementation in the public service of the EEC directive on equal pay for women, she took a court action, in which she was represented by

Mary Robinson

and Patrick MacEntee. After some legal skirmishes, the government gave in.

She continued to travel, learning to ski in her 60s. She could take advantage of her widowhood. Regularly stopped for speeding in her white Renault 4, she always managed to talk her way out of a ticket, telling the garda she was just a poor widow trying to get home to her six children – a mortifying experience for any children, some approaching their 20s, who happened to be in the car. She is survived by her children Anne, Orlagh, John, Aislinn, Jane and Paul and her sisters Pearl and Bernie.