A campaign has been launched to have the new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge named after the leading female figure in Galway during the 1916 Rising - Julia Morrissey.
Éirigí For a New Republic has launched the campaign and established a petition on change.org, where the public can show their support for the idea.
From Athenry, Julia Morrissey was a member of Cumann na mBan, and was originally the landlady of Liam Mellows when he first came to Athenry in 1915.
Mellows [pictured below] would eventually become leader of Galway’s part in the 1916 Rising, which saw the largest number of volunteers in action outside of Dublin. Mellows and Morrisey were close and she was devastated by his execution by the Free State in 1922.
.
She received little or no public recognition for her contribution to the fight for Irish freedom. She was given neither a 1916 medal or the veteran’s pension for her actions during the Rising. At some point in the 1930s, she was admitted to the ‘mental asylum’ in Ballinasloe, where she died in 1974.
“She is one of many women whose contribution to the revolutionary struggle has been either forgotten or deliberately airbrushed from history,” said Éirígí’s Galway representative, Ian Ó Dálaigh. “We believe naming the bridge in her honour would serve as a fitting, belated tribute, to Julia Morrissey and others of her generation, who risked their liberty and lives so that future generations, including our own, could live in a free Ireland.”
The petition can be found on change.org by typing 'Name Galway's New Pedestrian Bridge in Honour of 1916 Hero Julia Morrissey'.
