[1][2][3] She was also a suffragist and Irish nationalist who was present in the General Post Office, the main headquarters during the 1916 Easter Rising.

[2][8] Louise's brother George Gavan Duffy, one of the signatories to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, was an Irish politician, barrister and judge.

Her half-brother Sir Frank Gavan Duffy was the fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, sitting on the bench from 1913 to 1935.

She decided to continue her studies in Dublin but could not afford to move until she received a small inheritance from her grandmother on the Hall side of the family.

[5][2] Given the lack of teachers, even without a full qualification, she then taught in Patrick Pearse's St Ita's school for girls in Ranelagh.

She also joined the Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation Cumann na mBan, as a founding member in April 1914, serving on the provisional committee with Mary Colum, as a co-secretary.

[12][2] She was aware that being a suffragist and a nationalist were not necessarily the same thing, realising her involvement in Cumann na mBan was in support of nationalism.

She was in fact working on her Master's thesis during the Easter break in 1916 when the rumour came to her that the Rising had begun in Dublin city centre.

[17] The women in the GPO were given the opportunity to leave under the protection of the Red Cross on the Thursday as the shelling of the building had caused fires but almost all of them refused.

In the end the she was amongst the second group of the people to leave the GPO on the Friday, tunnelling through the walls of the buildings to avoid coming under fire.

[12] Duffy headed for Jacob's Biscuit Factory, another volunteer position, on the morning after the surrender, to see what was happening.

[12][2] After 1916 she was elected to the Cumann na mBan’s executive and in 1918 was one of the signatories to a petition for self-determination for Ireland which was presented to President Woodrow Wilson by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.

[2][20] In 1917 Duffy co-founded and ran Scoil Bhríde,[21] as a secondary school (at that time)[22] for girls in Dublin through the medium of Gaelic.

In October 1920, the Irish leader Michael Collins met Archbishop Patrick Clune there in secret.

[8][2] Once retired, she gave much of her time to the Legion of Mary and to an association which worked with French au pairs in Dublin.

Recognising the importance of her first-hand experience and with a good political understanding, Duffy recorded her memories of the events in which she had taken part.