Dublin’s O’Connell Street is lined with a number of statues that all have one thing in common – they are all men.

A proposal was put forward by Dublin City Council (DCC) in 2018 for a statue of Constance Markievicz, but proposals have since changed.

Councillor Cat O’Driscoll of the Social Democrats told The Pat Kenny Show that the space originally selected for this statue was deemed to be too small.

“Originally the site was looking at behind the Daniel O’Connell monument there, but it was deemed that space is a bit too small,” she said.

“There’s some underground plant machinery and things that need to be accessible, so that site is not going to be where we put anything new.”

O'connell Street. Image: Design Pics Inc / Alamy. 9 September 2009

Cllr O’Driscoll said that when the agreement for this statue was made, a subcommittee was established by DCC.

She said the subcommittee then decided the statue should instead be a commemoration “that would represent all the women who contributed to the revolutionary decade”.

They also decided the new location would be the plaza outside the GPO.

“I was actually on the side of I want a named woman on O’Connell Street, but we’re a democratic structure and we had the discussion,” she said.

“It was agreed that we would put it out to the artistic community for them to envision something that would encapsulate the contribution of women to our revolutionary decade and the foundation of this State.

“We haven’t gotten to the stage of asking the artistic community yet, we’re in this debacle of the ‘where’ before we can look at ‘what’ it is.”

Engineers assessment

According to Cllr O’Driscoll, this is due to the fact that engineers have said this space in front of the GPO can’t be used, as it would hinder the cleaning of the Spire.

However, Councillors do not accept this assessment.

“They must park a truck beside the Spire every few years to maintain it, including the cleaning of it,” she said.

“And we’re saying there’s space on North Earl Street, on Henry Street, we could close O’Connell Street temporarily for a few hours to do this cleaning.

“We need to think outside the box for these things, rather than this being a, ‘You can’t go there because we need it once in a while’.”

O'Connell St. Dublin, showing the statue of Jim Larkin in front of the main post office. Image: Sue Heaton / Alamy. 10/2008.

Cllr O’Driscoll said that women who have contributed to Irish history deserve more large-scale statues across our capitol city.

“We’re very good at putting the men on giant plinths, real significant statues,” she said.

“So far, we haven’t been good at doing that with the women who’ve really made Dublin and Ireland a really great place.

“So, we have lots of options, this is one thing that we’re trying to do.

“We still need to enhance the number of women represented in public art across the city and perhaps across the country.”

According to Cllr O’Driscoll, more work also needs to be done to highlight the role women have played in Irish history in general.

Main image: Monument of Daniel O'Connell in Dublin - Ireland. Image: Leonid Andronov / Alamy. 15 July 2015