A new bank note is set to celebrate some of the amazing things women from Northern Ireland have achieved.
Ulster Bank’s new polymer £50 note, which will come into circulation this summer, features Dame Jocelyn Bell’s iconic 1967 discovery of pulsars - spherical, compact objects that are about the size of a large city but contain more mass than the sun.
Dame Jocelyn, who was born in Lurgan, is considered one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists. Her discovery was a sensational find, recognised with the Nobel prize for physics in 1974 that went not to her, but to her male PhD supervisor.
She has since been a trailblazing promoter for women and the marginalised in science and was the first woman to be president of the Institute of Physics.
The design of the new £50 note, which is revealed today to mark International Women’s Day 2022, heavily features women working in NI’s burgeoning life sciences industry as well.
It also portrays ‘Millies’ working at the loom, as a homage to the unsung heroes of NI’s great linen industry. These women were seen as ‘unskilled operatives’ at the time but are celebrated in the note for their skill and graft.
