Kathleen Delap: Kathleen Delap, who has died aged 94, could have been president of the Irish Countrywomen's Association, had she chosen. A feminist, she preferred quiet influence to power, whether in the ICA - where she was known as its "national treasure" - or in several other women's organisations.
She was a member of the 1970s Commission for the Status of Women, whose radical recommendations on equal pay, family law, tax and family planning have since been largely incorporated into law. She was a founder (and later an honorary) member of the National Women's Council of Ireland, which grew out of the commission, because she did not want the recommendations to be a nine-day wonder.
This intelligent warm lady chose to "fit in" roles on national affairs with family life - and her garden. Above all, she was a supportive wife to her adored husband, Hugh, who became chief engineer at the Board of Works and president of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland.
They both became involved in socialist self-help endeavours, abjuring extremism whether in religion or on political questions. Friends, colleagues and family speak of her energy, her practical, pragmatic "almost unflappable" nature, tolerance, quiet determination, and especially her "interest in others". To grandchildren she was "one of us".
Kathleen Orpen was born in 1910 into a prosperous Protestant family of lawyers at "Lisheens", Carrickmines. In this large happy household of tennis and garden parties, charitable works and servants, governesses taught her in "the school room". Her father was Charles St George Orpen, brother of the painter, Sir William Orpen. Her mother was Cerise (Cherry) Darley.
At 15 she attended Alexandra College, on Earlsfort Terrace. She had intended to study law, but opted for architecture. Because TCD did not have a course she attended UCD, studying for four years without finishing.
Instead, in 1933, she married Hugh Delap, having taken three years to agree to his proposal. (Their eyes had met across the aisle at Tullow Church of Ireland when she was about five.)
She delayed only because she was afraid she was not clever enough for him. They lived for several years in a Molesworth Street flat and in Limerick.
Together they designed "Ards", their then ultra-modern flat-roofed family home in Cabinteely, built in 1938. During the Emergency, she joined the St John Ambulance and learned first aid.
"Ards" became a stimulating "open house" for close-knit family and friends. An environmentalist, she was sorting family rubbish before "green" was coined and used a "haybox cooker". She kept hens, grew fruit, vegetables and flowers.
In 1954 the Delaps built Na Malaí, a holiday home in Rosbeg, Co Donegal, to their design. Donegal was part of an Orpen holiday tradition and Delaps had once lived in the nearby Rosses.
The women's activism story began in the 1930s, but had its roots at Alexandra - where "making a contribution" was a founding principle - and in her mother's philanthropic works. With her extraordinary sisters Cerise, Grace and Bea, she became committed to the ICA in 1935.
It had been formed in the year of her birth, as the Society of United Irishwomen. Inspired by the ideas of Horace Plunkett and George Russell, it was devoted to ending drudgery among country women through education, interaction, self and mutual help.
In spite of the 1937 Constitution's article cherishing all the children of the nation equally, women's work still went largely unrecognised.
Female civil servants were forced to stop working upon marriage. Women were barred from many employments, including the police force.
Male farmers might spend on a water supply for the cows but not for their women's work in the home.
Controversially, the ICA discouraged women from marrying men who were not also committed to piped household water. Delap was involved in all the issues to the 1950s, including rural electrification.
She chaired a committee setting up a Farm Home Advisory Service, which grew out of a Marshall Aid scheme.
The ICA was about consciousness-raising. Delap said: "We behaved as we were expected to in a patriarchal society." But the agenda was to overcome that patriarchy.
Quietly, she was about women's empowerment - whether through horticulture, poultry, cattle management or crafts income, education, health and hygiene - or creativity and fun.
An editing job - on ICA news in the then Farmers' Gazette, from 1947 to 1955 - made her a feminist. It made her realise the reality of life for the majority of Irish women.
She then became ICA honorary secretary, and was busy on several ICA sub-committees. She became known as a custodian of the ICA's essence, and an expert on its constitution.
In 1954 in the Country Women's Trust she was involved with a crucial role model to her, Muriel Gahan of the Country Shop and Country Markets movement, in founding An Grianán, the ICA's Co Louth residential adult education college, funded by the Kellogg Foundation.
In 1958 she was elected "chairman" of the executive and ICA vice-president. Later she was Dublin Federation president and Leinster vice-president.
As chair, she led negotiations for the 1963 purchase of the organisation's Ballsbridge headquarters.
In the late 1960s she was on the Ad Hoc Committee of Women's Organisations. She helped set up the Women's Voluntary Emergency Service and the Glencree centre, first for Northern refugees and later as a reconciliation centre. (Her sister, the artist Bea Trench, became ICA president in 1974).
From 1983 until she died, Kathleen was an honorary Buan Cháirde (special friend) ICA committee member and delighted in "staying connected". She was for many years a member of the Council of Alexandra College.
In the early 1980s she won a Navan Carpets competition with a design using the women's symbol, called "Greenham Common". She acted locally, thinking globally.
Like her mother, she kept a diary - since 1938 to the day before she died. She was an avid reader until the end.
At her funeral her eldest son, Michael, told a story about her sense of priorities. During the 1995 visit of Bill and Hillary Clinton, she declined an invitation few would: a lunch for Ms Clinton. She had a prior ICA appointment and later explained: "I didn't have a window in my diary." She was not one to stand someone up because of "a better offer".
This year she moved to St John's House of Rest, Merrion Road, Dublin. After a short illness, she died peacefully at St Vincent's Hospital.
She was predeceased by her husband, Hugh, her siblings Arthur, Cerise Parker, Grace Somerville-Large and Beatrice Trench, and is survived by her sister Nan Perrin; children Michael, Dr Jean Quill, Charles and Anne Brew; 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Kathleen Hilda Delap: born January 27th, 1910; died October 29th, 2004.