It is with deep sadness that the Workers’ Party of Ireland announces the death of our lifelong comrade and friend Mary Garland (née Travers), a party stalwart who gave decades of service to the cause of socialism and republicanism in Ireland.

Mary first lived in Parnell Street in Dublin in 1941. Her father was a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising, and went on to take the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, two facts which she took great pride in. The 1940s were a time of great poverty and insecurity in Ireland, and in the 1950s, when most of Europe had a mini-boom, Ireland lagged in the doldrums. Towards the end of that decade, the Travers family joined the exodus of more than 400,000 people who left Ireland in search of work and a better future, moving to Glasgow, Scotland.

It was there Mary joined the Republican Movement and soon became a very active member. She often recalled selling the United Irishman newspaper or Easter lilies in the many pubs of Glasgow, particularly in the Gorbals area. She was also very much part of the effort to push the movement from narrow-minded nationalism towards socialism, anti-sectarianism and class politics.

Mary would return to Ireland and lived in Belfast, where she found herself involved with the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), working in the Belfast office of that organisation for several years. Here, her work included keeping track of membership records, organising marches, support for internees, speaking tours and fundraising concerts, amongst other responsibilities.

In the 1970s, Mary was living in Dublin with her husband Seán, where she continued as an activist in Official Sinn Féin as it made the transition towards becoming the Workers’ Party in 1982. In March of 1975, Mary was with her husband Seán, returning to their flat in Ballymun after an evening at the theatre, when INLA gunmen attempted to assassinate him, after which Seán spent many weeks in hospital recovering from gunshot wounds and blood loss.

At great personal cost, Mary played an important role in the development of the Workers’ Party, staying true to her principles all throughout her life; from the 1960s and 1970s while the movement developed ideologically, through the progress and highpoints of the 1980s, even after the attempted liquidation of the Workers’ Party in 1992, into our modest resurgence of the mid 2010s, and all the way right up until her passing. Mary stood with the party through a number of splits and remained loyal even with failing health in recent years.

Mary’s passing is deeply regretted by her comrades in the Workers’ Party, and we send our condolences to her daughter Caoimhe and Caoimhe’s partner Patrick, grandchildren Oliver, Alannah, and Jack, brother Eamon, sister-in-law Esther, the wider Garland family including Jimmy, Chrissie and Bernie, the wider Travers family, her nieces and nephews, and many friends.

Mary Garland

1941 – 2025

Inár gcuimhne go deo