Bus Éireann and the Royal Irish Academy (RIA ) have launched a collaborative campaign to commemorate leading female participants in the 1916 Rising. The campaign features a specially wrapped double decker commuter bus, and posters illustrating the stories of six women who featured prominently in the Easter Rising, on 650 buses nationwide. Bus Éireann travel centres across the country, as well as bus bays, some bus shelters, and Busaras in Dublin, will also feature billboards and a short digital video for the campaign. The figures will be profiled on board buses in the regions where they are most associated, with Mayo native Kathleen Lynn the figurehead for the west of Ireland
Kathleen Lynn was a clergyman’s daughter from Mayo who became chief medical officer with the Irish Citizen Army. During the Easter Rising she supervised a first-aid station in Dublin City Hall until the garrison’s surrender. Posters with this information and a link to information on the five other women featured in the campaign – at www.buseireann.ie/womenoftherising can be seen across Bus Éireann’s bus fleet in the west of Ireland.
RIA managing editor Ruth Hegarty said the collaboration was a great way for the public to learn more about the important role women played in the Easter Rising: “These women worked as snipers, cooks, couriers, secretaries, nurses and doctors during Easter Week. They all survived the Rising, and continued as teachers, doctors, actors and trade union activists. Their different life stories give a broader picture of the people who were involved in the Rising. The academy has written 10,000 biographies of the people of Ireland in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, and I am thrilled to see these six lives highlighted on Bus Eireann's national network.”
