In December 1887 Maria Winifred Carney was born in County Down to Alfred Carney, a commercial traveller and Protestant, and Sarah Carney (née Cassidy) a Catholic who supported the family by running a shop on the Falls Road, Belfast following Carney’s parents’ separation in her childhood.
In 1912 Carney became secretary for the Irish Textile Workers’ Union in Belfast. During the 1913 Lockout in Dublin, Carney participated in fundraising in Belfast on behalf of impacted Dublin workers. Through her work in the women’s section of the Irish Textile Workers’ Union Carney became a personal secretary for James Connolly. It was during this time Carney became a member of the Irish Citizen Army.
A member of Árd Craobh (Central Branch) during Easter Week, Carney served with the Irish Citizen Army as James Connolly’s aide-de-camp wherein she typed mobilisation orders and dispatches in Liberty Hall. On Easter Monday she had been a member of initial group who seized the GPO, arriving armed with a typewriter and Webley revolver. Similarly to Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grennan, Winifred Carney refused to leave the GPO on Friday of Easter Week despite Pearse’s orders and was amongst the last of the women to leave, travelling from the GPO to Moore Street. Carney was arrested at the Rotunda the following Saturday.
Winifred Carney was initially detained in Kilmainham Jail following her arrest, before being deported to Aylesbury Prison in England. She was interned until her release on Christmas Eve 1916. Carney later became President of Cumann na mBan Belfast for a period and was a member of the Cumann na mBan Executive.
Following her return to Belfast in 1917, Winifred Carney remained active as a trade unionist by joining the Labour Part in 1924 and through her employment with the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. In 1928 she married Belfast socialist and unionist George McBride, a former British soldier who served in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
Winifred Carney died in Belfast, Antrim, in 1943 aged 55.
[Sources: Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) entry, Jimmy Wren, The GPO Garrison Easter Week 1916: A Biographical Dictionary (2015), James Quinn, 1916: Portraits and Lives (2015, edited by Lawrence William White and James Quinn), Liz Gillis, Women of the Irish Revolution (2014)].
