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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
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July-August 2018
A
BORTION RIGHTS have projected
feminism into the discourse
these last months. But there are
other fundamental discrimina-
tions, some casual, and endemic,
that it may take generations to right: the
constitutional recognition of women’s work
in the home, the fact women (and their chil-
dren) usually take their husband’s name, the
masculine vision of god, manifest in, among
other things, the Roman Catholic clergy.
And…nobody talks about the presence of
women in our streets. Even if a street may
soon be named after Savita Halappanavar,
who died in 2012 following complications
during a miscarriage, after she had been
denied an abortion, men dominate every
-
where. There is only one bridge named af ter
a woman in Dublin: The Rosie Hackett Bridge
(1893-1976, founder-member of the Irish
Women Workers’ Union and member of the
Irish Citizen Army). It was chosen in 2014
from a list that included all male names
except for Kathleen Mills, one of the best
female camogie players.
There are also several statues: Molly
Malone in Suffolk St, The Floozie Anna Livia
near Arran Quay, Constance Markievicz in
Townsend St. Let’s be clear: it is not enough.
Ar tist and activist Will St Leger, who installed
a pink painted woman’s chest in from of City
Hall in 2012 to protest against this inequal-
ity, notes anyway that Molly Malone and
Anna Livia do not represent real women
By Marianne Lecach
It’s still a man’s
world in street
names, so positive
discrimination is
needed for living
feminists
Street
women
new Sheehy-Skeffington plaque: progress
OPINION
– “they are only a myth”. Moreover, hundreds of
statues can be seen in Dublin. Of men, typically
military and macho.
Five plaques in the capital are dedicated to
women, as against sixt y-four for men. A new one
was unveiled on 13 June by President Michael D
Higgins at Dublin Castle to honour Hanna
Sheehy-Skef fington. She was an Irish suf fragette
and founder of the Irish Women’s Franchise
League which campaigned for women’s right to
vote. Mrs Sheehy-Skeffington smashed some
windows in Dublin Castle as part of a protest in
1912. The plaque is now at the Ship Street
entrance of Dublin Castle and it is good to see
it.
Even where a place has been named after a
woman, it is not necessarily because of her
achievements. Women often became rich by
relationship - being the mother of a successful
man or a well-born daughter. For example, Ade-
laide Road honours King William IV’s wife, Queen
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen who was originally
a German princess. Henrietta Street on Dublin’s
Northside illustrates the problem. It is generally
believed to have been named in tribute to Hen-
rietta, the wife of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of
Grafton, but history just wasn’t that interested
and an alternative candidate is Henrietta, the
wife of Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton. This
is in effect naming a street after a woman
“behind a man”. That shouldn’t be necessary.
Certainly, in past centuries, women were even
more discriminated against than today. One of
the most important truths about history is that
they were simply not in a position to
make impor tant decisions and so to make
history. This is what gives the pointer to
what we should do now.
There are historical female figures who
deserve a place named after them. For
example, Grace O’Malley (also named
Gráinne Mhaol in Irish) was a female
pirate and warrior in the 16th-century.
She had hundreds of men under her com-
mand and owned a huge amount of land.
She was respected and feared, currently
at that time. The avant-garde novelist and
philosopher Iris Murdoch who wrote
about homosexuality and summoned
unforgettably evil imaginative
characters.
But perhaps Ireland’s greatest women
in history have been writers. Maria Edge-
worth wrote several thought-provoking
novels and tales with moral lessons. She
fought for equality children’s education
in the eighteenth century. She was
against arranged marriage and wrote
about interracial marriage between an
African servant and an English girl. She
could be considered one of the most con-
troversial female novelists of the
eighteenth century. Augusta Gregory
founded the Irish National Theatre Soci-
ety and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. She
was a playwright and sponsor of WB
Yeats. The feminist novelist Kate O’Brien
promoted the independence of women
and gender equality. Several novels deal
with homosexualit y. She is one of the pio-
neers in gay literature. Maeve Brennan
was an important Irish journalist at the
New Yorker
magazine between the 1950s
and 1970s. She wrote short stories, usu-
ally about relationships, loneliness and
sadness. Elizabeth Bowen is well known
for her war novel,
The Heat of The Day
,
published in 1948. It is considered to be
the most realistic novel about London
during the bombing raids in World War II.
Maeve Binchy mainly wrote about wom-
en’s issues in the twentieth century:
marriage, divorce, abortion, the Church.
To be fair, many of these woman writers
are honoured at the improvised but
informative ‘Icon Walk’ in Dublin’s Temple
Bar.
And there have of course been substan-
tial figures in culture and the arts.Eileen
Grey was a great designer of furniture;
Maureen O’Hara an extravagant and brave
actor. These icons are women for all time.
They have a greater claim to street names
than most of the men who cornered the
market. But all this misses the point.
We need to recognise that it is ok to
acknowledge women have been the victims
of history. Indeed more to the point, it is the
essence of the issue of historical commemo-
ration that women have been the victims of
history. They have been prevented f rom play-
ing their proper role in historical affairs of
state.They have been kept from power: sup-
pressed, often oppressed. As such it would
be fair to consider positive discrimination
towards living women, particularly feminist
models. We should recognise, and learn f rom,
the iniquities of the past. But we should
assiduously counter them in the present. For
this reason we should break one of the silent
rules of the process and name streets after
living women. We do not lack dynamos: like
Mary Robinson, first female president of Ireland
from 1990 to 1997; her successor Mar y McAleese
(after whom the Calatrava bridge between
Meath and Louth has already been named);
Mary Kenny and Nell McCaffrey who fronted the
Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s; and
we have great women writers: Edna O’Brien,
author of the Country Girls. Christina Noble who
was homeless and gang-raped but who never-
theless created the Christina Noble Children’s
Foundation in Saigon to help Vietnamese chil-
dren in need. Name streets after these women
and others. Let’s reflect the living reality that we
need to act in the present generation to coun-
terbalance the discriminations of the past.
During a meeting on 12 June, Dublin City Coun
-
cil agreed the following motion: “To honour the
memory of Savita Halappanavar, who tragically
lost her life as a consequence of the Irish State’s
barbaric and antiquated attitude to women’s
reproductive rights, that a street in our capital
city be named in her memory”.
The process to rename a street is drawn out
and is laid out under the Local Government
(Changing of Place Names) Regulations. It
involves a complex coming together of the
City CEO, the relevant Area Committee fund
the plenary City Council. Following adoption
of a list of names by the Cit y Council, the CEO
by Order fixes a time and date as last day for
receipt of completed ballot papers. After the
poll closed and the ballot papers opened, a
report of the result is sent to the Council.
According to the Council “an added compli-
cation to changing the name of a city centre
street revolves around the familiarity of the
public with the existing name and the level
of confusion that may ensue from changing
it.” But is not that the point. It is time the
public got used to a new paradigm.
In other European countries like France,
the process can be a bit easier. Anybody can
propose a new relevant name for a place. The
mayor and the Cit y Council have to agree and
vote.
It is time to recognise, on the streets as
elsewhere, that the inequality of the past
evokes a need for positive discrimination in
the present, with a view to equality for the
future.
July-August 2018
4 1
In Dublin five plaques are
dedicated to women against
sixty-four for men. Women have
been the victims of history. As
such it would be fair to consider
positive discrimination towards
living women, particularly
feminist models
some options
