Audio from the 2009 & 2010 Feminist Walking Tours

dublin | gender and sexuality | news report

Tuesday March 09, 2010 14:53

by editing and recording by Andrew Flood - WSM - personal capacity

On Sunday to mark international Women's Day over 150 people took part in the annual Feminist Walking Tour in Dublin organised by Choice Ireland, RAG, Lash Back and friends. These are audio recordings of all seven stops of the tour plus audio recordings from three of the stops from the 2009 tour.

From the tour handout
The idea behind the FWT is to highlight a history which is so often neglected or forgotten. A history that has made Ireland what it is, and contributed to the social, political and cultural topography of Dublin for as long as the city has existed. That is, of course, the history of women: our past, our present, and our ever-evolving future.

Let's rejoice in the women seeking equality, let's lament the women who have been oppressed or erased from history's pages, and let's inspire the women who will blaze a trail for generations to come. Knowledge is power, so we need to make sure the stories of our mothers, daughters and sisters are not lost simply because they were not documented in statues, or recorded in libraries. From members of the Women's Land League and Cumann na mBan – so important in creating our republic – who were literally wiped from photos in political airbrushing, to the horror of the Magdalene Laundries (the last of which only closed in 1996), to the vital accession of immigrant women and their daughters, who will shape the Ireland of the future. Let's remember, let's talk, let's think, let's share...and let's walk!

The first four stops are

1. Sinead from Choice Ireland introducing the tour at the Central Bank meet up point. 2.5 minutes

2. Sinead speaking outside the site of the Irish Women’s Workers Union in Temple Bar on women in the unions followed by Aliya Hussain of Akidwa speaking on Female Genital Mutilation. 9 minutes

3. This segment has Ariel speaking on LGBT activism and particularly queer women in Irish history on the boardwalk by the Liffey just down from Outhouse. 6 minutes

4. Sinead on the Dunnes Stores anti-Apartheid strike of 1984 outside Dunnes Stores off Henry Street and on women in the 1916 insurrection followed by ? on the history of 16 Moore street. 11 minutes

---

The rest of the audio will be posted as comments to this article in the next while

FWT1: Sinead from Choice Ireland introducing the tour 1.32 Mb

save preference

Comments (8 of 8)

briefly

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Wed Aug 04, 2010 10:35

No offence intended. It was the factoid '..childcare and work.....which is solely a woman's dilemma' that I addressed. I again refute your contention.

No sarcasm. Irish women are the backbone and mainstay of the heirarchy of the patriarchal church and staunchest defenders of their mammy's boys priests. Few men find the institution attractive, and we tend to be wary of any that do. The Murphy and Ryan reports confirm the validity of our doubts.

Perhaps it is that immature women are sometimes disappointed with the rough beasts they attract not being the dolls they dreamt of playing with. Perhaps the piety of the cleric is more to their delicate tastes. But the reality behind that facade is well exposed for any who are not wilfully blind.
But I speculate.
This is not ALL Irish women, and I have enough fine feisty liberated Irish women friends to put me in my place when I overstep my POOR EGO.

up womens lib

by non-voter

Tue Aug 03, 2010 22:09

The previous comment is very insulting to the vast majority of men in Ireland – and to the women of Listowell who the writer applies equally over-the-top insulting generalizations to. The writer does at least afford some grudging equality to the dastards of Listowell , if only of the extreme negative variety .

Yes ,women are still discriminated against all over the world , and yes, women are shamefully still abused .But man-bashng and moaning isn’t the answer . To change things you have to mobilize masses of women and man-bashing negativity is a complete turn off - for (most ) women as much as it is for ( most) men.

When the genuinely liberating and exiting mass "womens liberation" movement of the sixties turned into the vapid , dry academic feminism of the seventies - coinciding with the rise of Thatcherism - it lost its connection to the vast majority of women –women workers and young women in particular . Time to bring back womens lib.

STATING FACT..

by THE FACTS.

Tue Aug 03, 2010 18:40

What i have stated in my comments were FACTS.

You can colour them with your own bitterness and contempt if you wish to do so i am not really bothered.

You say i was being sexist and judgemental,maybe these are your own preconceptions based on your own personal experiences of women?

I see a LOT OF PROJCETION in this embittered respone to my comment.I am not interested in getting into a petty,frivolous argument with some computer letch trying to prop his POOR EGO up..I did detect a little sarcasm when you stated that ......
.....''.I have always been puzzled by why it is Irish women worship their priests.Is that how you prefer your men?''!!!!

Try winding up someone else in your 24 hour SPARE TIME.

'...childcare and work...

Mon Aug 02, 2010 15:53

'...which is solely a woman's dilemma.'

I find that comment both bigoted and chauvenist.As a male who did his shift as a single father, and who knows many lads who have fought(often to no avail) just for access to their kids I think such sentiments add little positive to the long struggle for women's rights.
I suspect personal bitterness is colouring your objectivity.Man-hating is not woman liberating. Some of us, despite sometimes negative experiences in rough relationships, think women and men do not have to be automatic enemies as collectives, any more than Brits and Paddies or Jews and Arabs.Our conquerors are facilitated by our own divisions.Perhaps when Irish women stop propping up 'Mother Church' we will see some progress.I have always been puzzled by why it is Irish women worship their priests.Is that how you prefer your men? Hardly a recipe for the safety of kids.If Irish men are such vicious bastards dont be blaming the fathers.Its our mothers had the major hand in our development.Many of my generation's fathers only got back from emigrant slavery for annual visits to re-inseminate their dutifully church-compliant wives in the creation of souls for the same mother church.
The destruction of the necessary role of fathers by embittered women who generalise from worst cases to the whole fucking lot of us will do nothing to further mutual respect.Women with power are not necessarily less callous than men. Thankfully most women seem aware of this fact and are as critical of their own gender's self-deceptions are they are of our's.It is often women who traffic children, just as it is matriarchy that supervises and inflicts female genital mutilation in primitive societies.If we do not recognise the cross-gender nature of the vices that afflict our sick society we are unlikely to advance to anything resembling a better one.The comforts of sexist solidarity(male or female)are false solutions to our church-fucked sexual/social relations.It is on such segregation the paternalists build their vampire empires.

showing your support

by Re:Feminist Walking Tour

Sat Jul 31, 2010 18:35

There was a good turn out on that day,and it was a lot of fun,i enjoyed the speeches,i still think there is a long way to go as far as womens rights are concerned.

Women in ireland even today are struggling with issues such as childcare and work - which is solely a womans dilemma..

There are still a lot of battered and abused women all over ireland.

There are changing values in ireland - media (male dominated media) enforcing a certain image of women who are depicted in a sexual and/or violent manner.obviously men growing up in ireland will naturally form an ''opinion of women in general'',this leaves out the option to fall in love with the human being.all you have to do is type in woman to a tool bar and you will see things about women like rape and bitch and slut,there are a lot of hate videos depicting women in a gratuitous violent manner.

Immigrant women with no rights whatsoever.

CHILD TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION IS ALL OVER IREALND MOST PEOPLE YOU WOULD NOT THINK ARE INVOLVED ARE INVOLVED.

The X - case i think was the most important story to be told as i feel it reflects who we are as irish people and what to expect as a woman or girl growning up in ireland..even today.

There are a lot of workplaces which are not family friendly.

Most organistations will not take on a woman who is over the age of 25 as they feel she may be of high risk , eg of having a family,wanting to change path in life etc..

I personally know of companies who have had this policy on women of working age in ireland.

Nothing much is done about it unless you want to risk losing your own job.

Only recently a woman in listowel(a very backward town with very backward people) who was vicously assaulted (by a married irish man who probably without a shadow of a doubt beats his wife..),and subsequently raped,had to go through being a social outcast.BECAUSE SHE WAS RAPED BY THIS THUG,OTHER MEN WHO WERE LOCALS SHOOK HIS HAND AND MUTTERED INSULTS TO HER.

THIS IS IRELAND TODAY.

Photographs from the Feminist Walking Tour, Dublin 2010

by Aileen

Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:23

aaocarroll at gmail dot com

Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Extras: 2009 tour audio's

by Andrew

Tue Mar 09, 2010 16:21

I recorded last years tour but a combination of a lot of wind on the day, poorer recording equipment and a late late night meant much of the audio was unusable. I'm taking the opportunity of the successful recordings of this years tour to post the three segments from last year that were salvagable although they are quite noisy - for those interested in the tech side of the recordings see http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/notes-activ...radio

The start of the 2009 walking tour