I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.

Murdoch’s comparison links two kinds of socially “praised” identity—womanhood and Irishness—that can be publicly celebrated while still being structurally subordinated. The line points to a familiar pattern: rhetorical respect (“important and nice”) coexisting with everyday marginalization (“second place all the time”). It suggests that flattering stereotypes and ceremonial recognition can function as a substitute for equal authority, opportunity, or cultural centrality. The remark also carries an edge of irony: being told you matter becomes part of the mechanism by which you are kept from mattering in practice. Read this way, the quote critiques tokenism and the gap between symbolic esteem and lived power.