NI Railways - First Female Conductor

From the collection of

Launched in 2000, Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive spans from 1897 to the present day and currently contains an ever-expanding catalogue of 13,000 items. It comprises material from a variety of depositors including feature films, sport, documentaries, animation, amateur footage, light entertainment, and a significant proportion of broadcast material from the UTV Archive.

NI Railways - First Female Conductor (Six Tonight)

Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive
Belfast
13 Jun 1989
Sound

A breakthrough for gender equality on the railways.

Ruth Davis is standing on the platform of Belfast's Central Station blowing a whistle to start a train. The voiceover of reporter Paul Clark informs us that she had just been voted Northern Ireland Railways' 'Personality Girl'. She is shown working with parcels and we are told she originally worked with computers, but disliked the office and took a job as a porter. Now she has successfully managed to become a train conductor, having been the only woman to apply.

Much of the interview with both Ruth and her boss in the company focuses on how she might be able to handle an unruly passenger - the implication being that women can't manage such aspects of the job. The report mentions that Ruth is the first ever female conductor on Northern Ireland's railways in the 150 years since the running of the first train in Ireland.

The idea that a woman working on a train might be newsworthy may seem hard to comprehend today and some of the questioning, as well as terms like 'Personality Girl' display a casual sexism which would be challenged today. It's thanks to trailblazers like Ruth taking on jobs previously set aside for men that this kind of equality no longer seems at all remarkable.

Good Evening Ulster was the weekday tea-time local news round-up for Ulster Television throughout much of the 1980s and helped to launch the careers of household names such as Gloria Hunniford and Eamonn Holmes.

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Diversity and Inclusion

A selection of news clips from the UTV archives highlighting the struggle for equality and diversity in Northern Ireland.

The 1980s and 1990s saw several significant changes in Northern Irish society. From improving services and support for neurodiverse people and people with physical disabilities, to amending workplace laws to address inequality for women, UTV documented many small but significant steps towards progress. The channel also covered Northern Ireland's growing diversity in terms of population. People from all over the world moved to the country to live and work. In this collection, we learn more about the Chinese, Indian, Persian and other communities that now call Northern Ireland home.

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