On Friday 14 August 2015 members from the pro–choice feminist group, Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. took their protest to the annual Rose of Tralee Festival in Co. Kerry. Based on the song, The Rose of Tralee, the festival centres on an international pageant in which women of Irish descent compete to be crowned Rose for being ‘lovely and fair’.
Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. subverted Ireland’s traditional rose pageant to highlight that the lack of reproductive rights on the island of Ireland are far from rosy. Throughout the day Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. performed the ‘Rogue Rose of Tralee Pageant’ in a number of locations in Tralee town. The Rogue Rose of Tralee featured a line up of international contestants who were not judged on their femininity, Irishness nor their personalities. Rather, in this political pageant contestants were judged on the reproductive rights available to them in their home countries.
The losers, Ms Northern Ireland and Ms Republic of Ireland, outlined that “reproductive rights on the island of Ireland are definitely not ‘lovely and fair.’” Instead, they demonstrated that, unlike their sisters living abroad, women are treated as mere ‘vessels’ and are still lacking freedom in terms of basic bodily autonomy.”
Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. members used the platform of the Rogue Rose of Tralee to issue a defiant call for all women on the island of Ireland to have access safe, legal and local abortion. In a statement they said that they hope that their action “will help to usher in a fairer future where all people in Ireland are treated equally and with respect for their personal and bodily autonomy. This vision for a fairer Ireland stands in dire contrast to the current reality where the 10 women a day who can afford to travel for an abortion do so with great distress, shame, secrecy, while those who are not in a position to travel are subjected to the institutional barbarism of the anti–choice laws of the Irish State – with horrific consequences, as in the recent cases of Miss Y and Savita Halappanavar.”
As members of the Irish Diaspora living in London, Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. members engage in direct–action, feminist performance in Britain and Ireland to highlight the current legal situation regarding reproductive rights on the Island of Ireland.