Profile: Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, now the focus of the Irish debate on same-sex marriage, have never been afraid to fight for minorities, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
Many of those who knew Dr Katherine Zappone and Dr Ann Louise Gilligan were surprised earlier this week when news broke of their High Court case seeking recognition for their marriage in Canada last year. While most of those who knew them were aware they were partners, the matter of their sexuality was not generally discussed.
"They are very private people," said one friend.
This was illustrated in their response to media queries for biographical information. Both supplied lengthy and comprehensive CVs, but these began with their education and professional lives. Little is known about their family backgrounds.
Dr Zappone is from Seattle, on the west coast of the United States, and she attended university there, graduating in psychology in 1976. She then attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, before going to another Catholic university, Boston College, to do a PhD in education and religious studies.
Dr Gilligan, formerly a nun, studied in the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin, and in the Catholic Institute in Paris, before also going to Boston College to do a PhD in education and religion. Both she and Zappone completed their PhDs in 1986, and came to Ireland, where they embarked on joint work in the areas of social and educational disadvantage and feminism. They have also written widely about feminism and spirituality. Both sit on Government-appointed boards and have served on a variety of such boards in the past.
Zappone is at present a public policy research consultant and a member of the Human Rights Commission, and was formerly chief executive of the National Women's Council. Gilligan is a lecturer in the philosophy of education at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, where she set up the Educational Disadvantage Centre, and chairwoman of the National Education and Welfare Board.
Despite the fact that both are distinguished in their individual professional lives, they have worked closely as a unit. Those who work with them rarely refer to them individually, but to "they". The quality of their personal relationship is closely bound up with their professional work, and the presentation of this personal relationship to public examination in the courts was perhaps a natural progression of their work on behalf of the marginalised over the past two decades.
Their first project to come to public attention was the Shanty educational project in Tallaght, which started with classes in the front room of their house in Brittas in 1986. They then found an old hunting lodge near Brittas and set up the centre there, providing second-chance learning to 2,500 people from the area before moving to An Cosan, a purpose-built centre in Jobstown in 1999. When it opened it already had 300 people on its waiting list for entry.
The courses run by Shanty ranged from bookkeeping and computers to community leadership, personal development, cookery and creative writing. Childcare facilities were provided, and men were welcome as well as women, though the majority of the students were women.
The present director of An Cosan is Liz Waters, who has worked with the two women for almost a decade. When it was suggested to her that they are perceived more a unit than as individuals, she agreed.
"Katherine would always have said that their energy and work flows from their own faithfulness and love for each other," she says. "That commitment to one another has flowed from their commitment to justice. I have never met such passionate women. They are so passionately committed to justice in the community.
"They don't think small. They dream, they imagine the best and they go for it. Quality is a hallmark of their lives, and it is one of the things people comment on when they come to An Cosan. They believe that this community deserves the best."
Their work in the community has been matched by research that has won the respect of academic colleagues. Gilligan has run a master's degree in educational disadvantage at St Patrick's, where teachers from schools in disadvantaged areas have been able to marry their experience with the latest research findings.
In 2003 her expertise was recognised by the Government when it appointed her chairwoman of the National Education Welfare Board. She has been outspoken in her criticism of its under-resourcing, telling the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science that, if properly resourced, it could "change the face of educational disadvantage in the State". Zappone is former chief executive of the National Women's Council and a member of the National Economic and Social Council.
She has been to the fore in trying to focus discussion on the links between economic development and social progress.
"How will we use our economic prosperity for the future well-being of our society?" she asked in an article in The Irish Times in 1999. "This is an ethical as well as an economic question."
She has been critical of the growing gap between rich and poor in Ireland, warning of its implications for social cohesion. Speaking at a public consultation meeting organised by the Human Rights Commission in Galway last year, she criticised the Government's method of measuring poverty, pointing out that the proportion of people living on less than half the average income had risen under its anti-poverty strategy.
She links this with educational disadvantage, pointing to the different levels of achievement from children in disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged areas. She has backed this up with detailed on-the-ground research, showing how children's schoolwork is affected by having no one to help them with their homework and, only last month, with a report on children in west Tallaght, showing that 90 per cent of them lived in fear of anti-social behaviour.
Zappone has used this kind of research to argue for policy changes, stating that current initiatives focusing on educational disadvantage are limited because of their short-term nature.
While deeply committed to social equality, she defies the often ignorant stereotype that people with such views wear hair shirts themselves.
"She's very stylish," says one colleague. "She dresses very well, and likes the good things in life, like clothes and nice restaurants."
The same colleague also testifies to her effectiveness.
"She has mastered the techniques of persuading committees," he says. "She is good at compromises, and good at getting her way. Even if provoked she does not lose her temper. She does not let differences of opinion get in the way of good personal relations. She does not personalise things, and has a great sense of humour."
Both she and Gilligan are seen to live life to the full, enjoying hillwalking and nature. They have a holiday home in Co Kerry, near Cahirciveen.
The fact that they decided, last year, to make a public statement about their relationship by marrying in Canada, and then sought to have that marriage recognised in Ireland, means that their personal lives, rather than their work, will be the focus of attention over the coming months. Yet their friends do not doubt that they see this is as an extension of their work.
"They are showing that the old feminist slogan, that the personal is political, is true," says Anastasia Crickley, who knows them from their work with the disadvantaged. She admires their courage in the stance they are taking.
"What has happened could act as a catalyst for the discussion we need about changing kinds of family structures in Ireland," she says. "This discussion should include the reality that often family life is now experienced on two continents by the families of migrant workers."
"What they are doing is not just for themselves," says Liz Waters. "They have the broader community in mind. They have a dream of a society that is equal and based on human rights. They are trying to create a different type of world, and this is part of that."