Her husband says he hopes when people walk through it they will be reminded of how “persistence and patience can deliver justice”.
In 1950, at the age of four, Christine Buckley walked through the gates of St Vincent’s Industrial School in Inchicore, and was incarcerated there.
“It was hell, absolutely sheer hell,” she recalled in the 1996 film Dear Daughter. “All I remember is screaming, screaming, screaming. Kids being beaten, beaten, beaten.”
Buckley survived it all somehow, and became a nurse, and an advocate for survivors of childhood abuse in religious and state-supported institutions.
She saw Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologise on behalf of the state to people who’d been abused as children.
She saw the establishment of what is now the Christine Buckley Centre, supporting survivors of institutional abuse and their families.
And she was outspoken on the national stage during the work of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (“the Ryan Commission”) from 2000 to 2009.
Buckley died of cancer in 2014. Now, Dublin City Council is planning to name a new plaza after her: Cearnóg Christine Buckley / Christine Buckley Square.
This new public space would be part of the affordable housing complex the council is planning for the site where St Michael’s Estate used to be.
The square would sit at the south-west corner of the site, facing what once was the Sisters of Mercy Convent complex in Goldenbridge, which included the industrial school.
Christine Buckley’s husband, Donal Buckley, said on Monday that he hopes the proposal goes ahead.
If it does, he says he hopes that when people walk through Cearnóg Christine Buckley they will be reminded of how “persistence and patience can deliver justice”.
At a meeting in July of the council’s South Central Area Committee, Sandra McAleer, the council’s project manager for the housing development, presented a proposed scheme for naming its buildings, streets and squares.
The council got planning permission last year to build 578 public homes on the former St Michael’s Estate site, off Emmet Road, between Richmond Barracks and Tyrone Place.
McAleer said the council was proposing to call this new development Ceathrú an Droichid Órga (Goldenbridge Quarter), and then talked the councillors at the meeting through the names of the various elements of the complex.
In line with a council policy brought in at the end of 2022 that new housing estates and apartment complexes be named in Irish, the names were in Irish, with English translations.
Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said he opposed naming the development Goldenbridge Quarter.
“I just really feel like we need to bin ‘quarter’,” he said. “I just think it’s such an Americanism, and we kind of name everything quarter now.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Máire Devine didn’t like that part of the scheme, either.
“I just shudder when I hear ‘quarter’,” she said. “I just think it’s so passé that we just need to get rid of it.”
But the councillors at the meeting supported the rest of the naming scheme, including the name “Cearnóg Christine Buckley”.
“I think Christine Buckley, I met her on a few occasions, it’s great to see that she could be acknowledged here in this development,” said independent Councillor Vincent Jackson, outgoing chair of the council’s naming and commemorations committee.
In the end, councillors asked McAleer to come up with a new overall name for the development, without the word “quarter”, but approved the rest of the naming scheme.
Although some naming proposals are referred to the council’s naming and commemorations committee for vetting, it looks like this one won’t be.
In response to a query about the next steps, now that the local area committee has approved it, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday that “there are no further steps in the process”.
The overall name of the development has been changed from Goldenbridge Quarter (Ceathrú an Droichid Órga) to Goldenbridge, the spokesperson said (presumably An Droichid Órga).
The rest of the names will go forward as proposed, the spokesperson said.
“Based on the recommendation and Councillor feedback the naming of the development was accepted by the Planning Authority,” she said.
When Christine Buckley died in 2014, Mr Justice Sean Ryan, who chaired the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, released a statement.
“At considerable personal cost she brought to public attention some of the most painful and disreputable wrongs that happened to children with the authority of the State,” Ryan wrote.
“She was an indefatigable champion of those who were abused as children and disbelieved as adults,” he wrote. “Ms Buckley worked tirelessly over many years to achieve justice and she leaves a legacy of achievement.”
“The nation owes her an enormous debt of gratitude and respect,” he wrote.
Her husband, Donal Buckley, said on Monday that while many streets and squares use only the honoree’s surname, he’d urged the council to use her full name.
Otherwise, the fact that this would be one of the few places in the city named after a woman could be lost and forgotten, he said.
“When you think of the Olympics and the role models we’ve seen there,” Donal Buckley said, “I think she is a fitting role model for her work.”
CORRECTION: This article was updated at 14.48 on 14 August 2024 to reflect that the photo of Christine Buckley at the solidarity march was taken in 2009 rather than 2008, and that although Donal Buckley is in favour of the naming process that does not reflect the views of the entire family. Apologies for the errors, and thanks to Christine Buckley’s daughter for the corrections.
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