![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4905596_3_articleinline_Dublin_E2_80_99s_women_street_traders_2C_1882-1932_by_Susan_Marie_Martin.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nFor all the recent uproar about the \u201cgroping\u201d of the Molly Malone statue in Dublin, it is striking how little attention we have paid to the street traders she represents.<\/p>\n
How ironic, for instance, that the bronze statue by sculptor Jeanne Rynhart was erected in 1988, just a few short years after a heavy-handed crackdown on Dublin\u2019s casual traders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They fought back \u2014 with the memorable anthem, Stand by your pram \u2014 but with limited success.<\/p>\n
Susan Marie Martin makes that point in a fascinating new book which charts the resilience and determination of generations of street traders who faced similar struggles as they tried to make an honest living while being moved on, fined, or sometimes jailed in a city that considered them a blight on the cityscape.<\/p>\n
Her new book, Dublin\u2019s women street traders, 1882-1932, focuses on that time period, in particular on the devastating effect of the Street Trading Act of 1926, but it opens with a brief history of trading that stretches back centuries.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an evocative description of the dozens of \u201coyster-wenches, poultry, and herb-women\u201d who lined out with the dignities to see King James II on a visit to Dublin in 1689, and danced at his side until he reached Dublin Castle.<\/p>\n
\n The author, as she did in her 2017 book on the shawlies in Cork, keeps the focus on the women themselves, winkling out the few traces of their lives and struggles that remain in the historical record.\n <\/p>\n
The records, for example, give us a telling outline of Ellen Preston, a mother-of-12 who traded for 43 years \u201cout in rain and snow\u201d and returned to her pitch within days of giving birth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She endured waves of police action in that time and once, when in court, told the magistrate she went out selling so she could keep her children in school as long as possible.<\/p>\n
There are several such vignettes in a book that outlines the forgotten sweep of stall holders that once stretched right across the city from O\u2019Connell St to Wicklow St.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Given what happened later, it is not too surprising to see how reviled those women were in some quarters.<\/p>\n
They \u201cdisfigured\u201d the capital\u2019s streets, according to an Irish Times editorial, which compared the noise, dirt, and disruption to \u201can oriental bazaar or continental ghetto\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, as in more recent years, there was concern the traders were taking sales from brick-and-mortar establishments, not to mention lowering the tone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rather encouragingly, they had support, too. And the women themselves showed incredible strength and resistance, in one case throwing fish and fruit at garda\u00ed during a raid on their stalls on George\u2019s St, which led to headlines in the local papers.<\/p>\n
This is a rigorously researched history book, yet it has something of a cat-and-mouse quality to it as Susan Marie Martin skilfully sums up the attempts by the Street Traders Act to corral and regulate traders, and how those affected fought back to protect their livelihood.<\/p>\n
Among those firmly on their side were Sarah Cecilia Harrison, artist and first female councillor of Dublin; Robert Biscoe, TD; Alfie Bryne, future lord mayor of Dublin; and future president Sean T O\u2019 Kelly, who described them as \u201chonest, industrious, hard-working people\u201d who paid rates indirectly.<\/p>\n
They also had a friend in James Brady, solicitor and city councillor, as well as Magistrate Collins. When the judge died in April 1930, the street traders of Camden St gathered to pay their respect and left \u201cthree beautiful wreaths\u201d.<\/p>\n
Now, in Suffolk St not far away, the touch-for-luck tourists are still reaching out for Molly Malone\u2019s bosom despite the flowerbed that surrounds her.<\/p>\n
Perhaps we should put in a QR code link to this book to give visitors a truer picture of the women who wheeled their wheelbarrows through the streets broad and narrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all the recent uproar about the \u201cgroping\u201d of the Molly Malone statue in Dublin, it is striking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[34216,18,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-242250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-books-non-fiction","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115750208306892789","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}