Sheila Kuehl
When Kuehl was elected as a Democrat to the California Assembly in 1994 a Republican majority was seated for the first time in 20 years. This was due largely as an out-flowing of the enthusiasm stoked up by Newt Gingrich's strategy supporting Republicans for the Federal Legislature. Kuehl recalled "The Republican majority was quite a different kind of Republican, not a moderate, not a Rockefeller Republican. They were primarily Bible-thumpers and very right-wing. So it was not the most welcoming Republican group, though they loved Zelda Gilroy, and it was very difficult for them because they already liked me so much…. And to their surprise, we all got along very well. ...The Republicans were pretty horrible about LGBT stuff. They all virtually said stuff like, 'Well, they're all spawn of the devil, oh, but not you, Sheila….'"
Sheila Humphreys
She spent a year in Paris (1919–20). Sighle joined "Cumann na mBan" in 1919 aged twenty, which organisation was founded in response to the very few women at the Sinn Féin Convention of October 1917. Sighle Humphreys (to use her Irish first name) serving variously as secretary, director of publicity and national vice-president. She was on the committee of the Irish Volunteer Dependants' Fund after the Rising. She was engaged in finding safe-houses for those on the run. The family home at 36 Ailesbury Road was used as an IRA safe house throughout the War of Independence. The Dáil Cabinet had weekly meetings and frequently used the big house on Ailebury Road. To ministers like Robert Barton, the embryonic republic was protected by a hard shell of army and politicians; but this did not prevent women in the movement being arrested. When Ernie O'Malley was captured at the Humphreys home in 1922, she was one of those imprisoned. She was finally released on 29 November 1923 after a thirty-one day hunger strike. The family took the anti-Treaty position during the Civil War and the house on Ailesbury Road was the object of regular raids by Free State forces. The most significant raid took place on 4 November 1922 when IRA Assistant Chief of Staff Ernie O'Malley was wounded and arrested in a protracted shoot-out with Free State soldiers. At the time only Humphreys, her mother and aunt were staying in the house with O'Malley. Humphreys is known to have played an active part in resisting the raid, though she always denied reports that she had been responsible for shooting a Free State soldier who died in the fighting. Sighle always said that Ernie O'Malley was 'a soldier above all', Since 1916, "Soldiers are We" was the unofficial national anthem of the Republic. The incident is described in detail in O'Malley's memoir of the Civil War, "The Singing Flame". In 2003 the raid was the subject of an hour-long docudrama entitled "The Struggle". The film was directed and scripted by Humphrey's grandsons Manchán Magan and Ruán Magan and produced by RTÉ.