Dublin City Council has approved a monument to be placed on O’Connell Street to honour Irish women of the revolutionary period.

The monument will be erected between the Spire and the James Larkin statue, in front of the GPO.

The revolutionary period spans the right to vote campaign of the early 1900s, the 1913 Dublin Lockout, the 1916 Easter Rising, the War or Independence and the Civil War.

Donna Cooney, chair of the Commemorations & Naming Committee of Dublin City Council described the news as “really exciting”.

“There’s absolutely no statues to women whatsoever on O’Connell Street and very few in Dublin whatsoever except for fictional characters,” the Green Party councillor told This Week.

The project has a €1m budget and Cllr Cooney expects there will be good competition from artists bidding for the project.

“We’ve one more little, small hurdle in the sense that we’ve one of the stakeholders to discuss this with and get the go ahead outside Dublin City Council.”

The committee needs to meet with the Luas operator to ensure the monument would not impact its services.

Cllr Cooney said that she hopes the monument will be on O’Connell street within 18 months adding the project has the “support of the full council”.

“We wanted a really prime location,” she said.

Cllr Cooney said that just 20% of plaques in Dublin City commemorate women.

“They’re not in the history books and they’re not well known,” Cllr Cooney said adding that women also don’t get recognised in the naming of other public areas such as parks.

The committee is not putting forward any particular woman’s name.

Cllr Cooney hopes that when the project goes out for commission the artists will propose something that commemorates women.

“It may be the artist might put a lot of names around it; they may not,” she explained.

“So, it’s open really for the commission and then for the selection panel, which will involve experts in public arts.

“We don’t want to influence too much exactly what the artists will come up with.

“It may very well have their names. It may have lots of names.”

Cllr Cooney’s great grand aunt was Elizabeth O’Farrell who carried the flag of surrender in the 1916 Easter Rising.