Kathleen Lynn to feature in Rising bus campaign

COMMEMORATION Olwen Jennings as 1916 revolutionary ‘Kathleen Lynn’ at the launch of Bus Éireann's campaign last week. ‘Women of the Rising: Journeys and Learnings’ will feature on 650 buses nationwide, including a 75 seater double decker bus. Pic: Naoise Culhane

Anton McNulty

MAYO-born revolutionary Kathleen Lynn will be one of six women associated with the 1916 Rising who will feature in a Bus Éireann campaign entitled ‘Women of the Rising’.
The collaborative campaign between Bus Éireann and the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) aims 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.
The six figures will be profiled on board buses in the regions they are most associated with, and Dr Kathleen Lynn, who was born in Killala will feature on buses in the west of Ireland region.
Dr Lynn was a member of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army, and during the 1916 Rising she was the Chief Medical Officer and stationed in City Hall. When the ICA leader, SeΡn Connolly, was killed in City Hall, she became the officer in charge and was later imprisoned in Kilmainham and Mountjoy prisons.
Born in 1874 in Mullafarry, near Killala, she was the second-eldest child to the local Church of Ireland clergyman, Robert Lynn, and his wife, Catherine. The family moved to Cong when she was four, and The Lynn Medical Centre in Cong is named in her honour.
Dr Kathleen Lynn died in 1955 and is buried in the family plot at Deansgrange Cemetery with full military honours.
The Bus Éireann campaign coincides with a new drive by the company to hire more female apprentices in roles traditionally dominated by young males.
The company has just commenced a national advertising campaign seeking to fill 14 places in a four-year heavy-mechanic apprenticeship programme, and it is seeking to attract female applications for the programme.

MORE See next week’s Living section for more on Dr Kathleen Lynn, and an upcoming multi-venue Mayo exhibition on her life and work.