Labour Cllr. Ciara Conway Celebrates International Woman’s Day 2010
Issued : Tuesday 9 March, 2010
On Sunday the 7th of March Labour Cllr. Ciara Conway took to the streets of Dublin with hundreds of woman from all over Ireland to participate in the Feminist walking tour of Dublin. Labour Cllr. Ciara Conway stated ‘The idea of this tour is to highlight the history which is often neglected or forgotten. A history that has made Ireland what it is today, a history that has contributed to the social and political fabric of the Ireland today’
This tour incorporated a stop at Fleet Street the site of Irish Woman’s Working Union, at the beginning of the 20th Century working conditions in Dublin were deplorable, woman remained largely non- unionised despite their dire working conditions. The IWWU was formed in 1911 and played a vital role in the infamous 1913 lock out. Other stops included Dunne’s Stores on Henry Street where in 1984 ten young woman and one young man refused to handle South African Fruit, the strike lasted a year until the government agreed to ban the import of South African goods until the apartheid regime was overthrown.The tour also celebrated the bravery of the woman of the 1916 rising, as well as woman who are often forgotten about in history Fanny and Anna Parnell who founded the Ladies Land League in the US to raise money for famine victims. The tour concluded at the Magdalene Laundry on Sean Mac Dermott Street remembering all the woman who were locked away from society, Over the 150 years that the Laundry’s were in existence 30,000 woman passed through the laundries. The last laundry closed in 1996.
