[3] Margaret Gillespie, from an Irish Protestant family,[4] was born at Boyle, County Roscommon,[5] and educated locally and in Derry.

In 1906, after attending a National Conference of Women meeting in Manchester, Cousins joined the Irish branch of the NCW.

[7] Cousins co-founded the Irish Women's Franchise League with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington in 1908, serving as its first treasurer.

In 1913, breaking the windows of Dublin Castle on the reading of the Second Home Rule Bill, Cousins and other suffragists Mabel Purser, Barbara Hoskins and Meg Connery were arrested and sentenced to one month in Tullamore Jail.

James Cousins initially worked for New India, the newspaper founded by Annie Besant; after Besant was forced to dismiss him for an article praising the Easter Uprising, she appointed him Vice-Principal of the new Madanapalle College, where Margaret taught English.

[6] By the late 1930s she felt conscious of the need to give way to indigenous Indian feminists: I longed to be in the struggle, but I had the feeling that direct participation by me was no longer required, or even desired by the leaders of India womanhood who were now coming to the front.

She received financial support from the Madras government, and later Jawaharlal Nehru, in recognition of her services to India.