Come Here To Me!

Recently I took part in a 1913 walking tour of the city which was recorded for DCTV, who will air the tour later in the year to coincide with the centenary of the Lockout. Essentially, I told the history of various locations briefly, and then a song relevant to that location was performed. One place we visited was the new bridge which is being constructed across the Liffey, as there is an attempt to name it after Rosie Hackett, a trade unionist from the time. Here, Alison O’Donnell sings ‘Rebel Girl’ in honour of Rosie.

Below is an image of the banner I mentioned in the piece above. Rosie and other female trade unionists took it upon themselves to raise this banner on Liberty Hall on May 12th 1917, a year after the killing of James Connolly. While James Connolly is also in the running for the naming of the bridge, as a man who never feared to put women at the front of his movement, one wonders would he be happier to see the Rosie Hackett Bridge?

Rosie herself later remembered this event, and told the Bureau of Military History:

Of course, if it took four hundred policemen to take four women, what would the newspapers say? We enjoyed it at the time- all the trouble they were put to. They just took the script away and we never heard any more….

Historically, Liberty Hall is the most important building that we have in the city. Yet, it is not thought of at all by most people. More things happened there, in connection with the Rising, than in any other place. It really started from there.