A quiet revolution: Trinity’s women employees over the years

Posted on: 08 March 2024

1904 was a momentous year for Trinity College Dublin, marking the arrival on campus of the very first female students. 

But these were not the first women at Trinity. There is written evidence that women were employed on campus, initially as domestic staff, but in increasingly diverse roles as time progressed, for several hundreds of years. In recent decades, they have fought hard for pay equality. 

On International Women’s Day 2024, Trinity is celebrating not only its many brilliant women graduates and eminent academics, but also the many wonderful women who have worked in administration, catering and a whole range of other functions without which the university could not operate.

A new video celebrates their contribution and reflects on some of the challenges they faced in a working environment that first felt, to many, like a foreign shore. 

In a video (below) that was shown today at a symposium organised by the Hist and the Trinity Women Graduates association, Provost Dr Linda Doyle (pictured above with from left, Elaine Reynolds, Peggy Murphy and Mary Leahy) reflected on the role women have played in shaping the university: 

“Trinity is a complex organisation and there's a collective weave of labour that makes Trinity work. On International Women’s Day I want to celebrate all of the women, in all of the roles, past and present, that make Trinity what it is.” 

Prof. Andrew Somerville has researched Trinity’s history in fine detail and spoke of how he located several pieces of evidence of how women first made an appearance here centuries ago, such as a kitchen maid in 1736 and a hall maid by the early 1750s.  

An extract from the Bursar's quarterly accounts for 1764–65 shows that an unnamed ‘kitchen maid ‘was paid £4 and a ‘hall maid’ paid £2 15s in the period.  

Elaine Reynolds, now an Executive Officer at Trinity Access Programmes, started working in housekeeping at Trinity in 1996.  She recalled how unfamiliar the place seemed. 

“Even though I'm from Dublin City I had never come in under the front arch, so I was always expecting to be told to leave.” 

“I was only here four or five weeks when I found myself on the strike line - we were fighting for pay equality and part-time pensions at the time.” 

Mary Leahy, now Head of Employee Relations at Trinity and a former union activist, explained that in the 1990s, part-time workers at Trinity were not entitled to the same incremental pay increases as full-time workers. This overwhelmingly affected women. 

“You could have a housekeeper in here for 20/30 years and they never incremented.  

All women, nearly all part time.” 

Pay equality came in the 1990s but the pension issue took longer. 

In 2002, Mary was among a small group of SIPTU shop stewards who interrupted an event attended by the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney, where they marched up to the front wearing T-Shirts that read "27 years' work - no pension". 

In fairness to Mary Harney, noted former shop steward and now Housekeeping Supervisor Peggy Murphy, who took part in the protest on the day: “She did actually see the point we were making.” 

The effort paid off. 

As Mary Leahy commented: “It gave women seven years extra pensionable service that they would never have had.” 

ENDS 

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