Born October 23rd, 1939
Died May 31, 2025
Carmencita Hederman, a former lord mayor of Dublin, long-time Dublin city councillor and senator on the Dublin University panel, has died aged 85. An articulate, independent-minded, inspirational figure who remained engaged in civic issues long after her political career had ended, she was known throughout Ireland by her first name alone.
She served as lord mayor of Dublin from 1987 to 1988, becoming the third female to occupy this honorary role as first citizen of the city. Working with Matt McNulty, former director of Bord Fáilte [now Fáilte Ireland] and then head of Dublin Tourism, she created an extensive programme of events to celebrate Dublin’s millennium year in 1988. Everything from the millennium milk bottles on every Dublin doorstep on New Year’s Day to open-air festivities throughout the year gave Dubliners a pride in their city and attracted tourists, bringing much-needed revenue to businesses.
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“People were very negative about the future of Dublin at the time and the millennium events that Carmencita and I organised restored confidence in the citizens of the city,” says McNulty. During her time as lord mayor, she also oversaw extensive renovation of the Mansion House and its front plaza so that the lord mayor’s residence was fit to host international events.
In 1988 she received a Rehab People of the Year award for her political work. That same year she was presented with an honorary doctorate of law from Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
[ Former senator and lord mayor of Dublin Carmencita Hederman dies aged 85Opens in new window ]
As a graduate of TCD, Hederman successfully ran for the Seanad on the Dublin University panel. She was a senator from 1989-1992 while still serving as a city councillor; the abolishment of the dual mandate to hold two political roles was only introduced in 2004. She often said she felt the Seanad had limited power and she found the experience of being a Senator frustrating.
Dermot Lacey, another long-time Dublin city councillor and former lord mayor of Dublin, said Hederman was “exceptionally committed to local government as a principle in itself ... She liked the immediacy of the effect councillors could have and she had a well-organised and well-disciplined support group. She was good for Dublin and she embodied the city during the millennium year.”
Hederman’s involvement in local politics began in the late 1960s, spurred on by the destruction of Georgian and Victorian houses for office developments on Burlington Road, Dublin 4. With the support of her husband, Billy, and a neighbour, Martin Reynolds, she founded the Upper Leeson Street Area Residents’ Association (ULSARA) to oppose the rezoning of a block of residential houses on Leeson Street and Leeson Park for office buildings. Thereafter, the association became a thorn in the side of Dublin city managers, as Hederman and others battled to preserve the distinctive architectural features of the area while developing a rich community spirit among residents.
“They fought house by house to stop offices creeping in, earning the nickname the Leeson Street Storm Troopers,” says her daughter, Wendy Hederman, who was a Dublin City councillor for the same Pembroke Area from 2004-2008.
Through her activism on conservation issues, Hederman was an energetic and persistent trailblazer, fearless of property developers, city managers and their officials. In ULSARA, Hederman and her colleagues carefully monitored the weekly planning lists to spot unwelcome developments. They would often park a caravan on the side of the road outside a house that had been illegally turned into offices, just at the time that the developer was showing it to prospective clients.
“Many of the houses in the area weren’t yet listed for preservation or even protection, so they could all have been demolished to make way for purpose-built office blocks in the Ballsbridge office zone,” says Frank McDonald, former environment editor of The Irish Times.
“Carmencita and her well-spoken ‘storm troopers’ were talking a different language to the developers and equally suburban-minded bureaucrats who ran Dublin Corporation [now Dublin City Council] who simply didn’t understand why people would get so exercised about ‘progress’ in the city,” he adds.
Hederman was also a cyclist and a strong advocate of making space for cyclists on city streets, long before the Green Party campaigned for cycle lanes.
As her association continued its fight to conserve parts of Dublin, it wanted its own representative on Dublin City Council. And so, she stood for election in the Pembroke area of Dublin 4 and – with widespread community backing – she topped the poll. She took up her position as an Independent Dublin city councillor in 1974 and remained there for the next 26 years.
Following her year as lord mayor, Hederman travelled throughout Ireland to support the work of the Tidy Towns. She also tried to secure a nomination to run for the Irish presidency in 1990. And while Alan Dukes offered to have his party nominate her if she joined Fine Gael and became the official Fine Gael candidate, she refused as she wanted to run on an Independent ticket. That was the end of her ambitions to become president.
Hederman was also very sociable. With her husband, Billy – a surgeon in the Mater hospital and president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland for a time, she had a wide circle of friends. The couple regularly held parties in their Leeson Street home and hosted family and friends in their summer house near Roundstone in Co Galway. “They believed in packing in the activities, never idle, especially in Connemara – swimming, trekking, climbing mountains, foraging, sailing to islands and sharing good times with family and friends,” says her daughter Lucy Hederman.
Carmencita grew up in Blackrock, Co Dublin, the youngest of four children of George and Ita Cruess-Callaghan. Her father worked as a scientist for the Department of Agriculture while her mother, a social science teacher, managed the family home.
After her secondary education at the Sacred Heart convent on Leeson Street, she studied history of art and languages at Trinity. At the age of 22, she married William Hederman from Limerick. The couple brought up their five children, Lucy, Linda, Wendy, William and Simon, in the house on Leeson Street.
“Mum encouraged each of us to develop our strengths and find our path in the world. At family dinner – every evening at 6.30pm – you had to be able to contribute and defend your point of view,” Wendy Hederman told the congregation at her funeral.
In their later years, Carmencita and Billy took their older grandchildren on outings one afternoon a week, exploring Dublin museums, Leinster House and the zoo. And although her health failed in recent years, she made the most of life, with lunch dates with her sisters, Croasdella and Consuelo and friends while keeping up with current affairs.
Carmencita Hederman is survived by her children, Lucy, Linda, Wendy, William and Simon, her sisters, Croasdella and Consuelo, and her nine grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband, William (Billy) and her brother, Frank.
