Unlike many well-to-do young women of that time, the sisters were somehow persuaded their parents to allow them choose careers rather than follow the conventional path of a 'good' marriage and children. They lived in a Dublin that was in effect two cities, one a grim place of dire poverty, the other a secluded eyrie of charmed privilege. Isabella, a Protestant who was loyal to the British crown, and Frederick, a Roman Catholic, had 12 children. Beginning in 1901, the book tells the story of the wealthy Gifford family of Rathmines. So it was with Muriel, Nellie and Grace Gifford, whose stories are told in Marita Conlon-McKenna's new novel, Rebel Sisters. At the start of the 20th century, women in Ireland didn't have a voice and the right to vote was years away. Some of them, however, through privilege and passion, managed to break free of the roles expected of them. A lot has been said and written about the men of 1916, but little about the women - they weren't written out of history because they weren't written in to begin with.
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