Considering everything she did in her life – as a teacher, an author, a political activist, an archivist, private secretary to the premier of Alberta, and a journalist – we should be much more familiar with the name of Katherine Hughes.  Most people, however, are unaware of everything she achieved and helped to create in the first decades of the twentieth century, in part because of some of the controversies surrounding her, the most notable of which was her strident and vocal support for Irish republicanism.  In the first of three episodes about controversial Irish Canadian women, we’re going to discuss the life and times of Katherine Hughes, and why, until recently, she has remained fairly forgotten in the history of Irish Canada.