Readers of THE GLOSS gathered at the Irish Stock Exchange to celebrate Ireland’s first female stockbroker and the evolution of THE GLOSS | Goodbody Investment Club …
An attentive and glamorous crowd joined THE GLOSS and Goodbody at the Irish Stock Exchange’s headquarters in Foster Place, Dublin 2 to hear Dr Antonia Hart give a thrilling lecture on the life and times of Ireland’s first female stockbroker, Oonah Keogh. The latter joined her father’s stockbroking firm in the early 1920s at a pivotal point in the country’s history, and was granted a license to practise thanks to the efforts of the first female Cumann na Gael TD in the Dáil, Margaret Collins O’Driscoll (elder sister of Michael Collins and mother to 14 children) and the gender equality terms set out in the then Constitution.
Dr Antonia Hart, Laura DeVoy, Investment Director, Goodbody, and Michelle O’Keefe, Head of Wealth Advisory, Goodbody.
Dr Hart’s account was followed by a lively discussion on how things have changed for women in the world of finance. Michelle O’Keefe, Head of Wealth Advisory at Goodbody revealed that on her first day at the Stock Exchange, 50 years after Oonah, that she too was the only woman on the floor of the Market Hall and she too was not permitted to wear trousers!
So, after 150 years, the Goodbody name has endured, and the firm has adapted to meet the needs of clients, as evidenced by how, during the pandemic, THE GLOSS and Goodbody got together to launch a female-focused Investment Club with the aim of addressing a need – and a want – for relevant financial information for women. The Club began by hosting a series of online events with the all-female Wealth Advisory team at Goodbody presenting sessions on pensions, divorce, inheritance etc – matters that affect every woman, no matter her walk of life OR her financial capacity.
The all-female Wealth Advisory team at Goodbody.
While it’s all a very different world to the one that Oonah Keogh found herself in almost a hundred years ago, Laura DeVoy, Investment Director, Goodbody explained that financial independence is something that many women across the world still can’t take for granted.
The panel agreed that Oonah Keogh would have loved the idea of the Investment Club, and how much she’d have loved to be involved. She had an absolute passion for the world of investment – 20 years after she’d given up, she still listed a daily study of the financial news as something that brought her great joy. She did express disappointment after she left that there wasn’t a flood of women following her, or even a trickle. As Dr Hart said: “I think it would lift her heart to know that information and education about the industry she loved so much were being shared in this way, and being shared by women, for women. So long as they weren’t wearing trousers, of course.”
If you are interested in becoming a member of THE GLOSS | GOODBODY Investment Club, you can register now through this link. Membership costs €15 with proceeds going to charity.
Click into the gallery below to see the guests in attendance …
Photography by Conor Healy / Picture It Photography.