Today we’re absolutely delighted to announce the Forgotten Women’s History Tour, which starts on the 5th of June. This tour is the work of Róisín Kenny Caird, a well-established Edinburgh-based tour guide. She’s a writer, podcaster, comedian, and a philosopher, besides being a generous conversation partner and skilled researcher. All skills that are essential to bringing the city of Edinburgh to life.
So there’s one question that’s worth answering today and that’s “why do we need a woman’s history tour of Edinburgh?” The obvious reason is that knowing more history is always useful but there’s other factors worth getting in to, so let’s explore together.
Importance of the Forgotten Women’s Tour of Edinburgh
Initial idea
The tour originated following conversations about the number of statues of women in Edinburgh. There are two women who have stand alone statues – Queen Victoria and Helen Crummie, who founded the Craigmillar festival. To put in perspective, Edinburgh has three stand alone statues of named animals – Greyfriars Bobby at the Greyfriars Kirkyard, and Bum the dog and Wojtek the warrior bear in Princes Street Gardens. So our dogs get the same recognition as our women!
This led to the creation of a video for BBC the Social, which is the online arm of BBC Scotland, written, filmed and performed by Roisin and released on International Women’s Day 2021. The video focussed on the women of Edinburgh who could have a statue, and formed much of the basis and reference of the tour. Having offered the tour privately to many groups over the last few years, including Edinburgh University and Women in Property Scotland, we are very excited to offer the tour on a weekly basis, as the only regularly scheduled women’s history tour in the city. Now with two other fantastic and experienced female guides, Elinor and Caroline, we hope that we can start to reframe the narrative and represent the Forgotten Women of Edinburgh’s history.
Comparison to Other Tours
The best way to see why a women’s tour of Edinburgh is so important is to compare it to some other tours. Especially, the most similar tour to it – the Old Town tour.
The Old Town tour we offer, at present mostly done by me, Fraser. When I first did this tour in 2019, it had many more named men than named women. This is because men have often been the biggest institutional figures and most history is about them. The only women in my tour when I was starting out, in common to most Edinburgh tour guides, were ones who are considered almost mythical.
My tour changed significantly in the last 6 years so now our Old Town tour is much more feminist with named women featuring in many more of the stories, almost 50% of named people.
In spite of this, the women’s tour Roisin is written is properly unique. It has women on it of undeniable historical importance both to Edinburgh and internationally, many of whom I was unaware of. I’m proud of the fact my Old Town tour is trying to expand the range of people who get talked about on a general history tour, but it would be impossible to give the amazing women of this city enough credit without having an entire tour dedicated to them.
There have been attempts by others to do women’s history tours in Edinburgh. None that I’ve read about are offered as regularly or on a Pay What You Think It’s Worth model. Roisin’s women’s history tour contains stories of at least 20 women. It ranges almost a thousand years in scope. It is ambitious, it is intelligent, and it is an honour to have it in the Street Historians roster.
Conclusion: Book the Forgotten Women’s tour
The tour can be booked via our partners right here. This tour is an attempt to reposition women in Edinburgh’s history by talking about the forgotten and under-appreciated. As can be seen, women have often been sidelined in history even when they have incredible stories to tell. Women often get considered a “niche” part of history and that simply isn’t good enough for a group that comprises half of the people that have existed. It is a delight to try and redress the historical imbalance so come along and support it!
The writer of this piece has done the emotional labour of writing it but has given Roisin extensive editorial powers to make sure it represents her contributions well. She also wrote much of the “initial idea” section”.
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