Following her tenure, Káňová joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and organized labor strikes.

Irena Káňová was born on 5 April 1893 in the town of Banská Štiavnica in central Slovakia, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[1][2] Káňová joined the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in 1917, and was interred in Terezin during the First Hungarian Republic for organizing class conflict.

[3] On 5 December 1919, Káňová was appointed to the Revolutionary National Assembly [cs] of the First Czechoslovak Republic to finish the term of Alice Masaryková.

Following the war, she was an active member of the Communist Party of Slovakia and the Slovak Women's Union.