Contesting History: Opposing Voices
Department of Modern History
Trinity College Dublin
Permissive Society or Just Society? Women and Politics, 1950-1970
1. Interpretation
Setting
Source 1
June Levine, Sisters: the personal story of an Irish feminist (Dublin, 1982), pp 15557.
Source 2
*Desmond Fennell, The state of the nation, Ireland since the sixties (Swords, 1983),
pp 83-84, 89-90.
Source 3
Diarmaid Ferriter, Mothers, maidens and myths, a history of the *Irish
Countrywomen’s Association (Dublin, 1995), pp 49-51.
2. Primary Documents
Feminist Forerunners
Document 1
A memorandum submitted by the *Irish Housewives Association to the Commission
of Inquiry into Emigration and other Population Problems, June 1948 (N.A.I. IHA
Collection, 98/17/5/3/13).
Document 2
Amended constitution of the *Irish Countrywomen’s Association, 30 June 1966
(N.L.I. Records of the ICA, MS 39, 284).
Document 3
Extracts from the annual reports of the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and
Social Workers, 1956-60 (N.A.I. IHA Collection, 98/7/1/2/2).
Document 4
The resolutions and working programme adopted by the xix th Congress of the
*International Alliance of Women, Dublin, 21 Aug.-2 Sept. 1961 (N.A.I. Department
of Foreign Affairs, 335/638).
Towards Equal Rights
Document 5
Report on a meeting of the ad hoc Committee of Women’s Organisations on the
Status of Women, 5 May 1968 (N.L.I. Records of the ICA, MS 39, 866/3).
1
Document 6
*Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, Irishwomen: Chains or Change, Dublin, 1971
(N.A.I. D/T 2002/8/60).
Document 7
A letter to Jack Lynch on Senator Mary Robinson’s bill to amend the Criminal Law
(Amendment) Act of 1935, 15 March 1971 (N.A.I. D/T 2002/8/458).
Document 8
An extract from the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women (Prl 2760)
(Dublin, 1973).
3. Ancillary Material
Key Terms
Key Characters
Conclusion
______________
2
Setting
Apart from some high profile exceptions, women’s involvement in political life in
Ireland remained very low key until the late 1960s. The constitutional vision of the
role of women in Irish society as full-time wife and mother remained unchallenged.
Political activism would be completely at variance with this comfortable home-maker
role. A series of regressive laws excluded women from the public sphere and severely
restricted their legal and economic position. Legislation required women to resign
from public service employment after marriage whilst entry into certain skilled
professions was limited. University education remained open to only a small minority
of women. However, increasing numbers of women did manage to participate in
traditional organisations like the *Irish Housewives Association and the *Irish
Countrywomen’s Association. These organisations defined women’s issues as
everything from consumer rights to children’s welfare and women’s political
representation. Because of powerful societal constrains and the conservatism of its
members, these organisations remained locally-based and made no attempt to forge a
more radical women’s movement. As the 1960s dawned, however, traditional Irish
stereotypes were coming under increasing scrutiny. Accompanying this trend, the
radical feminism of early twentieth-century Irish history resurfaced. The resurgence
of feminism can be traced to the early 1970s when a number of groups mobilised,
including the Dublin-based *Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM), and an
ad hoc committee on women’s issues set up in 1968, comprised of traditional
women’s organisations, achieved an unprecedented advancement of women’s rights.
The major issues of the first year or so of the IWLM concerned housing, equal rights,
recognition of single motherhood and – although more controversial – contraception.
It was agitation, however, by the IHA, the ICA and other long-standing women’s
groups which forced the government to appoint a commission to review the status of
women in Irish society. The Commission on the Status of Women presented its
findings to government in 1972 and recommended that marriage and sex bars be
abolished and employment-equality legalisation be enacted. Although the early 1970s
witnessed the re-emergence of radical Irish feminism, it is important to note that the
participation of women in various kinds of organisations during the 1940s and 1950s
was steadily increasing. This popular renewal of interest in women’s rights is
intrinsically related to the revival of the women’s movement with its emphasis on
equal access to the workplace, education and public life. This module examines the
factors which led many women to become women’s rights advocates seeking legal
equality and equal treatment in employment, or even to campaign for increased
political representation for women. Your analysis should explain the impact of
economic, political, and cultural changes on women’s views about their status. It
should also address the following main questions:

What do the documents reveal about the experiences that led many women
to change their views about their status?

To what extent was the Irish women’s movement primarily a social
movement before the early 1970s?

At what point did Irish feminism begin to explore significant political and
ideological issues?
3

What do the documents reveal about the major goals of the women’s
movement and the most important factors limiting their attainment?

What were the major achievements of the women’s movement?
______________
Source 1
June Levine, Sisters: the personal story of an Irish feminist (Dublin, 1982), pp 15557.
When it began in 1970, the *Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM) was
specifically – and self-consciously – radical and non-hierarchical, and thus
distinguished itself carefully from the conservatism of earlier women’s rights’
organisations. The civil rights movement in the United States, anti-Vietnam war
protests and, obviously, the emergence of the international women’s movement, were
influential contributory factors in generating a climate of change and protest.
Women’s political remobilisation in Ireland was catalysed by the publication of
Irishwomen: Chains or Change by the IWLM which highlighted legal, educational,
political and economic inequalities. Returning to Dublin after her divorce in the late
1960s, the freelance journalist, June Levine was quickly drawn into the emerging
women’s movement. Her account of liberation and personal fulfilment is also an
important chronicle of the early days of the women’s movement in Ireland.
______________
In 1971, the *Women’s Liberation Movement gave birth to a document, Chains or
Change, which was brought forth after much wrangling to preserve structurelessness.
It drew up six demands: equal pay, equality before the law, equal education,
contraception, justice for deserted wives, unmarried mothers and widows. Chains or
Change detailed discrimination against women in Ireland. It shocked even some of
those who had contributed to its research. Things were even worse for Irishwomen
than we had thought, and we still hadn’t had the Report on the Commission for the
Status of Women. There was much fuss over the demand proposed by Máirín de
Burca (who was then so active with the Dublin Housing Action Committee), for one
family, one house. Mary Kenny, Nuala Fennell and others were exercised by this Sinn
Féin demand, but Máirín swayed a sizeable acceptance of it when she argued that
equality would mean little to women if women who didn’t have any kind of decent
living accommodation. Woman’s place in Ireland was still in the home, so bad
housing affected her more than anyone else.
I was divorced by the time I joined the movement, carrying with me a deep-seated
horror of the negative possibilities of marriage for a women. But nothing ever
influenced my decisions against remarriage as surely as did the information in Chains
or Change. Not that remarriage is that common in Ireland, where there is not divorce
and Catholics are not permitted to marry divorcées anyway. The common way round
that in Ireland is ‘let’s pretend’. It’s a façade which serves a social, if not legal
purpose. And everybody else pretends too that the women has not merely changed
here name by deed poll, so we call them Mr. and Mrs. Same-Name. Deed-poll
marriage Irish style, without the benefit of divorce in between. … Remarriage Irish
4
style is not considered the same thing at all as Living in Sin, which brings me back to
Chains or Change.
The pamphlet contained a brilliant summary by Mary Maher: ‘Five Good Reasons
Why It Is Better To Live In Sin.’ It has served consistently through the years to
remind me why I should ever take a subservient position to any man, in sin or other
wise. Like a bit of knitting, this article has remained cast on the needles of my
consciousness. Occasionally I add a line such as ‘why should I worry about his work
ahead of my own, his washing if he doesn’t do mine, his food if he won’t learn to
cook.’ I’m knitting an invisible garment which looks as if it will not be finished until
the day I die. Sometimes I have to unravel a bit this knitting, but since it is invisible.
…
The fourth and fifth reasons [for living in sin], Mary admitted, were unlikely to be
taken seriously by any women on the brink of marriage, because she would be
unwilling to think too deeply about the possibility of a relationship going sour. ‘A
woman who is only living in sin can remember reason number four: you can leave
when things have finally become unbearable, merely be walking out the door. A
married woman who leaves her husband is presumed to have deserted him and has no
right to his home, furniture or income.’ Which brings us to number five: ‘If you live
in sin you don’t submit to the insult that society offers women who marry – the status
of property. An adult and equal relationship is something two people forge together.
The institution of marriage is something invented to preserve male superiority and a
system of female chattels.’
How many sinners did this document create?
Analysis Questions

What effect did the publication of Chains or Change have on Levine?

How did Levine’s comments reflect the sense of injustice felt by many
Irishwomen? Why did the feminist message strike such a chord with many
women in the early 1970s?

How important was the conscious identification of the individual as the focus
for change in women’s rights activism?

How important were left-wing and republican activists in the early Irish
women’s movement? Why was the tackling of social deprivation such a
defining feminist issue?
______________
5
Source 2
*Desmond Fennell, The state of the nation, Ireland since the sixties (Swords, 1983),
pp 83-84, 89-90.
For almost forty years, *Desmond Fennell has written cogently on a variety of
issues concerning Ireland and the wider Western world, often clashing with the
liberal-revisionist ascendancy. The state of the nation casts a critical eye on what
Fennell considers to be the assortment of undigested ‘consumerist liberal’ influences
that have permeated Irish thinking since the 1960s. In Ireland, because of the inherited
strong influence of religion, consumerist liberalism had to fight the battle of
secularism. Fennell suggests that Catholic influence had created legal obstacles to the
key consumerist aim of encouraging ‘sexual consumption without troublesome
consequences.’ There were laws prohibiting the sale or importation of contraceptives.
Moreover, there was a constitutional ban on divorce. In this extract Fennell argues
that the women’s movement was effectively tricked into advocating the
denationalising project of consumerism. In taking up this cause, feminists have also
actively promoted a general decline in sexual morality.
______________
In the course of the 60s and the early 70s, the principles and programme of neoliberalism revealed themselves. The old free trade principle – everything must be
rendered saleable to everyone who has the money – was retained and expanded. It
was now to be applicable to trading, such as contraceptives and pornography, in
which trading had previously been forbidden or limited by law. Nationalism, both
political and linguistic, in small and medium-sized nations was anathema; it could
impede the free flow of goods, and costs to advertising, and restrict the freedom of
multi-nationals.
To the free trade principle, the new consumerist principle was added: everything
must be rendered consumable, and – short of reducing consumer activity by damaging
physical health – consumed as much as possible by everyone. Just as the old
abstemious principle had been applied right across the board, so too was the
consumerist principle. Applied in the sexual sphere – and its application there was a
central theme of the 60s – it meant making human bodies, and particularly women’s
bodies, sexually consumable at will without troublesome consequences. This, in turn,
required the dissolution of sexual morality, removal of the reticence that supported it,
free availability of contraceptives, easy divorce and abortion on demand.
To boost the consuming power of poorer people, states were encouraged to extend
and increase ‘social welfare’ payments. States assumed leadership of the national and
international economies, regulating, animating, redistributing. Tax revenue subsided
industry and the introduction of new technology.
From the end of the 60s, feminism was revived and given major roles in the
programme. Propaganda for the ‘women’s right to work’ brought more women into
the workforce, where expanding production needed them. As wage-earners,
moreover, they became more effective consumers, and ‘equal pay’ made them more
so. The feminists were encouraged to believe that female contraception (not by
unprofitable natural methods, but by saleable gadgets and chemicals), as well as easy
divorce and legalised abortion were ‘women’s rights.’ Many of them believed this and
contributed actively to overthrowing the legal obstacles. In this case, as in many
others, most people who furthered the interests of capitalist power were not
6
consciously working for its interests, but for some private purpose or from some
humanistic or altruistic motives. But motives were a matter of indifference to the
managers of consumerism: all that mattered was the atomisation, massification and
materialisation proceeded, and that production, consumption, and money flow
increased. …
Consumerism sold itself as liberation and social justice. It was liberation from
material deprivation – the spreading affluence proved that – and from all those
traditional taboos and deferences which deprived men, women and young people of
their right to stand and live alone and sovereign. In the 1960s youth was flattered and
encouraged to stand up for its rights vis-á-vis parents and teachers. ‘Protest’ was
encouraged against every established form of authority, on the grounds that all
authority existing prior to the new kind was oppressive. In the early 70s women were
flattered, not in the traditional way – they were told to reject that – but as human
beings like men, or superior to men who had the right live as men did. Social justice
was defined as equal opportunities for all; access for everyone to housing, health
services, and schools of all kinds; and money for spending in everyone’s pocket.
Analysis Questions

What links does Fennell see between the sexual revolution in the 1960s and
the rise of the women’s movement?

What role did feminism play in the ‘consumerist-liberal’ project?

According to Fennell, what have been the effects of the equation of
consumerism with liberation and social justice?

To what extent did the campaign for access to contraceptives push the
boundary for women’s rights in Ireland?

How did the sexual revolution of the 1960s bring both liberation and tyranny
for women?
______________
7
Source 3
Diarmaid Ferriter, Mothers, maidens and myths, a history of the *Irish
Countrywomen’s Association (Dublin, 1995), pp 49-51.
The increasingly political work of traditional women’s organisations during the
late 1960s was to be an important factor in the emergence of the women’s movement.
Traditionally, organisations like the *Irish Countrywomen’s Association had focused
on achieving gradual reforms (such as, consumer rights) rather than diversifying their
agenda into the political field. In his history of the ICA, Diarmaid Ferriter argues that
by the 1960s the breadth and depth of the Association’s work was expanding. But,
although there were some complaints within the ICA that the organisation was ‘too
quiet’ and did not give enough support to women in public life, the odds continued to
be stacked against the formal involvement of the Association in party politics. This, in
turn, raises questions about the precise character of long standing women’s
organisations like the ICA and their relationship to the contemporary Irish women’s
movement.
_____________
It was the preoccupation with the idea of moral conscience which characterised
the *ICA’s public image in the 1960s. There were now (in 1965) over twenty
thousand members, and the size of the organisation was a challenge to the hegemony
which had previously existed, particularly as the canon of Irish cultural concerns
expanded in the sixties, with more of an emphasis on practical social reform. Lila
Russell of the Associated Countrywomen of the World had drawn attention to the
difficulties this could give rise to when she suggested that the objectives of rural
organisations could be hampered owing to the fact that: ‘whilst struggling for social
improvements, we run head on into the political struggle …’
In this context, it was significant that during the sixties, while there was increased
female representation on public bodies and county councils, there was also
disappointment on the part of some ICA members that they often couldn’t retain
valuable members who entered public life. Some suggested alteration of the
constitution might be necessary. Others strongly disagreed. In many ways, the myth
of consensus on the future of rural Ireland was being exposed, despite the purist belief
that every rural organisation could work as one in shaping the rural community. For
others, the sixties dictated that the ICA be peacemakers rather than crusaders – during
the National Farmers’ Association dispute in 1967, President Peggy Farrell told her
organisation that they had obligations as peacemakers, and could not take sides in the
dispute. Their offer to mediate was rejected. Was it safer to stick, as de Valera had
implicitly urged them to do, to less contentious causes – to promote the use of Irish, to
educate people on the importance of European cooperation, to ensure Irish
broadcasters did not transmit programmes depicting unhappy marriages? (which the
ICA’s television sub-committee discovered was the chief dislike of their members).
The ICA guilds continued to police the morals of rural Ireland, proposed changes in
agricultural rates, pension provisions, the education and welfare of their children, the
conditions of hospitals, tax rates and medical care. Equity in employment and
transport concerns were also prioritised. In their warnings on the dangers of pollution
to the country environment they were more far-sighted than many of their peer
organisations.
8
But it was inevitable that as Irish society became more accustomed and attuned to
discussing new ideas and methods, and as the traditional structures and spheres in
which the ICA had thrived and made their own lessened in significance as defining
and reference points, conflicts and indeed contradictions would emerge in the raison
d’être of the Association. To a greater extent than hitherto, Irishness could now be
about variety, and the ICA’s maternal nationalism, erudite and all-embracing though
it may have been, came under more critical scrutiny.
Analysis Questions

What challenges did the ICA face in the 1960s?

Why did women in the ICA find the political constraint of the organisation
frustrating?

Why were organisations like the Irish Housewives Association and the Irish
Countrywomen’s Association obliged to discourage their members from
commenting on controversial issues?

Did these traditional women’s associations form part of the ‘establishment’?
To what extent was an ‘elitist’ bias reflected in the goals of these
organisations?
______________
9
2. Primary Documents
Feminist Forerunners
Document 1
A memorandum submitted by the *Irish Housewives Association to the Commission
of Inquiry into Emigration and Other Population Problems, June 1948 (N.A.I. IHA
Collection, 98/17/5/3/13).
Concern for women’s issues in Ireland reached a very low point in the late 1940s.
Rising prices and low incomes, unemployment, emigration and industrial unrest all
give rise to increased dissatisfaction in the country. The limits put on women’s lives,
especially those of married women, became more stringent due to increased
mechanisation and the decline of traditional agriculture. Women’s lives became ever
more centred on domestic life. Although individual feminist voices persisted
throughout the middle years of the century, they were on the whole isolated and found
little popular expression in a state where the majority were concerned with economic
subsistence and many of the more adventurous emigrated. The 1940s and 1950s were
marked by a virtual epidemic of emigration amongst Irish girls and women, as they
fled to find work in Britain. The Commission on Emigration and Other Populations
was appointed in 1948 to examine various aspects of Ireland’s population, but in
practice it concentrated almost exclusively on emigration. In its submission to the
commission, the *Irish Housewives Association highlighted the economic and social
factors which were driving so many women out.
______________
Our memorandum mainly consists of conclusions arrived at in the course of our
work, after studying statistics and after discussions on their problems with women in
every walk of life. We have attempted to define only a few of the many causes of
emigration and to suggest some possible remedies.
Our main reasons for giving evidence to this Commission, as a body of organised
housewives, are:
(a)
That since 1946 the emigration of women from Ireland (26 counties) is
larger than that of men; and –
(b)
That the marriage rate of women in Ireland has decreased considerably in
the last hundred years.
We believe therefore that the status and conditions of women in this country
should be particularly investigated. …
II. Specific Suggestions Concerning the Status of Women
The total number of women emigrants in search of unemployment in 1946 was 19,
205, a figure substantially higher than the number of men emigrants for the same
period (10, 829). … Although those figures are partly explained by the stricter control
imposed on male emigration and the lifting of all control on female emigration after
July 1946, yet they show an alarming tendency to emigrate on the part of Irish
women. The marriage rate of Irish women is low, and has been steadily decreasing in
the last hundred years, as is pointed out in the statistical abstract 1946 where
comparison is drawn between 1941 and 1841 figures. …
10
Ireland is perhaps alone among European countries to show a combination of
these three factors: Mass emigration of women, low marriage rate of women, high
marriage age. We believe that they are three symptoms of the same condition: the
inferior status of women in several aspects of the social and economic life, in spite of
their recognised political equality in the form of the right to vote. This inferior status
is manifest in the following; automatic dismissal of women from many positions on
marriage; inheritance laws permitting the favouring of the sons to the detriment of the
daughters. …
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK: It is so evident that when men and women
compete in the same field of work for the same remuneration should go to the people
with the same qualifications doing the same job, irrespective of sex, that it should not
need stressing. Unfortunately, be it in the industrial, commercial or professional
fields, rates of pay are invariably lower for women than for men. The State and other
authorities sanction this and set a bad example by differentiating between sexes when
advertising for jobs open to both. As a result women are very often grossly underpaid. According to 1943 figures (quoted by Father F. O’Brian, of University College,
Galway, in Christus Rex [Catholic sociology journal] April, 1948), 96% of women
workers received less than £3 a week. The usual excuse for discrimination against
women is that many have other means of support and no dependents. The proportion
of women workers who are single or widows and have dependents should be
ascertained and would probably be found to be quite large. Besides, although the
number of men aged 20 to 30, for instance, who are married and have dependents is
relatively small (not one in six – 1941 figures, Table 12 of Statistical Abstract, 1946)
yet the single men are not discriminated against as in the case of women.
We believe also that to give women’s dependence as a reason for underpaying
them is to throw them further into a state of dependency which is incompatible with
so-called civilised ideals. This is bound to create dissatisfaction and restlessness, and
a desire to try other places which can boast of higher wages and greater freedom.
Another excuse often given for inequality of pay between sexes is that equality
would throw more men out of employment. As pointed out above, discrimination
against women means exploitation of female labour. The existence of this cheap
source of labour is obviously a greater danger to male employment than equal pay for
equal work could ever be.
We suggest therefore that this principle of economic equality should be
recognised and practised by the powers-that-be, as one important step towards raising
the whole economic status of women.
DISMISSAL ON MARRIAGE: We believe that married women have at least as
valuable contribution to make to the community as spinsters or widows, and that it is
a very short-sighted policy to refuse this contribution from them if they are willing to
make it in the field of employment.
Again we deplore that the bad example in this should be set by the State. No doubt
many women postpone marriage and the founding of a family on account of this
dismissal until they have got sufficient money put by. Probably not a few who marry
and lose their jobs have cause to regret it when they find themselves confined to the
limits of the home and the housekeeping routines. It is of course difficult to keep a job
while raising a family. Children however grow out of their mother’s care in a few
years. Many women probably willingly renounce their job on marriage or when the
first child came along, if they felt assured that in 6-8 or 10 years they could get back
11
to some form of employment suited to them, thus giving full scope to their energies
and abilities.
We suggest that the choice between keeping or leaving a job on marriage should
be left with the woman. We make mention of this question here as it has a definite
bearing on the fact that Irish women marry late.
LAW OF INHERITANCE: This affects particularly the women of the country, the
wives and daughters of many of the 212,000 farmers. As the law stands, it is possible
for what little family wealth there is to be concentrated upon the eldest son, to the
detriment of the younger boys and more particularly of the daughters. It is possible for
a farmer’s daughter to devote long years of toil to a farm from which the marriage of
her brother may actually displace her without a penny to her name. …We believe that
a reform of our inheritance of laws might make certain that all children in rural
Ireland and not merely the eldest sons would have some share in the ownership of the
land for which they work, of the farms which are in no small measure their creation.
We believe that emigration among the younger children of the farming
community may often spring from their near-certainty that years of toil on their
father’s farm will bring them on his death neither a share in its ownership nor a right
to a proportionate compensation from the elder boy who takes over the farm. …
IN CONCLUSION: We believe that, as Ireland is far from being over-populated,
emigration is a sign that our house is not in order, and therefore although stricter
controls may partly check it, they will not entirely stop it and will inevitably create
other problems at home.
The causes of this evil must be cured. A national population policy can only be
formulated in connection with a national economic development policy taking into
consideration the interests and well-being of all. It would be probably consist of a
long-term and a short-term policy, and in the latter we would like to see included
some well-thought-out propaganda directed at those who have left as well as at those
who might wish to go, and based upon facts and immediate achievements.
We re-state our belief, finally, that the lamentably under-privileged condition of
Irishwomen, and in particular of rural Irishwomen, is a major factor in the large-scale
and continued emigration of women. Effective measures to combat this evil must take
full cognisance of its major cause.
Analysis Questions

Why does the IHA consider it vital that it give evidence to the Commission of
Inquiry into Emigration?

Why did women who had found work in Ireland in the late 1940s feel
themselves unusually disadvantaged?

How did the inevitability of loss of employment affect a woman’s decision to
marry?

What role did economic considerations play in encouraging women to
emigrate? Were any other factors involved?
12

What specific suggestions does the memorandum make in relation to attempts
to curtail female emigration? What were the IHA’s goals regarding women in
the paid workforce? Were these explicitly feminist objectives?

To what extent does the evidence submitted by the IHA support the conclusion
that women emigrated from Ireland because they could not find a satisfactory
way of life?
______________
13
Document 2
Amended constitution of the *Irish Countrywomen’s Association, 30 June 1966
(N.L.I. Records of the ICA, MS 39, 284).
The *Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) evolved from the United
Irishwomen, founded in 1910, with the aim of promoting ‘better living’ for rural
women. From the outset the organisation was concerned with issues such as family
health, education and horticulture. Training and instructing women in agriculture and
‘domestic economy’ was seen as a way of working for the good of the whole country
and improving the lot of rural women and families in particular. It adopted a very
democratic structure with self-managing guilds in each county overseen by a national
council of guilds. Combining a traditional commitment to the enhancement of rural
life (the expansion of markets for agricultural produce and rural electrification were
key demands) with a receptivity to feminist and even political issues, the ICA was one
of the most influential and respected women’s organisations in the country.
______________
Bantracht Na Tuaithe
Section I: The Association
1. The name of the Association shall be Bantracht Na Tuaithe, or in English, the
Irish Countrywomen’s Association.
2. The objects of the Association shall be
(a) to develop and improve the conditions of rural life in Ireland;
(b) to organise branches of the Association which shall be known as (i)
County Guilds (ii) Town Associations. And to form federations from
these branches.
The Association shall be non-political and embrace all creeds.
3. The Association shall have the power to all things which in the opinion of the
Association are incidental to or conducive to the attainment of the objects of
the Association.
Section II: Membership
4. The Association shall consist of members organised in branches known as
country guilds or town associations affiliated to the Association. Any woman
or girl over 16 years of age may become a member of a guild or town
association.
5. The Association shall be non-political and non-sectarian. There shall be no
discussion of a party-political or sectarian nature, nor shall any resolution of a
party-political or sectarian nature be proposed at any meeting of the
Association . …
6. The Association shall be a constituent member of the Associated
Countrywomen of the World (ACWW) and may be affiliated to such other
bodies as may, on the recommendation of the Executive Committee, be agreed
by Council at an Annual General Meeting.
14
Section VII: Country Guilds and Town Associations
48. (a) No Country Guild may be established in any town with a population of over
4,000 inhabitants.
(b) Town Associations may be formed in towns with a population of over
4,000 inhabitants.
(c) In the case of new Country Guilds or Town Associations the first
affiliation fee shall be omitted and in its place a registration fee of 5/- (to cover
all members) shall be paid to the Central funds of the Association.
Section VIII: The Executive Committee
84. A member of the Executive Committee who has been nominated by a political
party to Dáil Eireann, Seanad Éireann, or any local authority shall be given
leave of absence from the Executive Committee while she is candidate for
election.
85. A member of the Executive Committee who, as a member of a political party
becomes a member of Dáil Eireann, Seanad Éireann, or any local authority, on
her becoming a member, will cease to be a member of the Executive
Committee.
______________
2. An editorial, ‘Men and Women’ (The Kerryman, 26 October 1957).
There are times, more often indeed than we realised until now, when the subjects
discussed in these columns are those which are regarded as coming for the most part
within the province of men, or perhaps, it would be more correct to say, what men
regard as their province. Most men regard politics and public affairs as their domain
and rarely concede that women have a head for such things. They expect their
women-folk to follow their lead in such matters and to go to the polls, national,
county and local, and vote for the same ticket as themselves. That, of course, is by no
means the absolute rule, but we think it is not unfair to say that most households, led
by the senior male member, throw the weight of their votes on the same side of the
scale.
Women have got into the habit of letting their men folk dictate the family attitude
to politics and public affairs. Women, as a rule, are not keen readers of parliamentary
debates or of the proceedings at public bodies. They let these pages of the newspapers
to the men, preferring to scan sections devoted to fashions, hand-work, cookery,
advertisements, amusements and illustrations. Rarely will you find a women sitting
down in slippered ease to a methodical reading of the day’s serious news. In too many
homes is that the reserved function of the menfolk.
Generally speaking, the woman would hold a pair of knitting needles or a needle
and thimble in her hands longer than she would hold a newspaper, and for longer than
either she would hold a heart-to-heart talk with a woman friend, passing in review the
doings, the comings an the goings and, let it be said, the shortcomings of their
acquaintances. … What we are trying to convey clumsily and heavy handedly, is that
men and women have different approaches to living. Men prefer to read about them;
women prefer to hear about them. Men like to theorise and expound; women like to
face an issue, and, perhaps, without grasping all the essentials, resolve it. The
reasoning of men and the intuition of women very frequently arrive at the same
15
conclusion; only the woman’s is quicker. Next to the infallibility is the intuition of a
good woman, somebody has said or written.
It is, generally speaking, a wise dispensation that makes the man concern himself
with affairs other than the purely domestic. They are best left to women. Nobody,
man or woman, likes a male Judy. This division of responsibilities and functions on
the doorstep has much to commend it. …
Of recent years women have tended in greater numbers to take an interest in
affairs outside the home. No less an authority than the Holy Father has welcomed this
growing desire of women for a place in public life. His Holiness has commended the
movement for the protection that it will bring to home and family life, and especially
children. Women are by nature the custodians of the home, the family, the children
and all that goes with them. Anything that tends to disrupt the home is repulsive to all
good women. They would sense any tendency in that direction quicker than men.
Throughout Ireland and within our circulation area of recent years, there is a
steadily growing movement entirely devoted to the things in which every Irish woman
in town and country should have an interest. As its name the *Irish Countrywomen’s
Association, indicates, it draws its strength from the Irish countryside and admits
women from the towns as associates. The women who have joined it have become
very much attached to it and are enthusiastic about spreading its ideals. That is the
supreme test of any organisation.
The Irish Countrywomen’s Association is non-political and non-sectarian. It is a
cultural and educational movement, which aims to improve conditions in rural
Ireland, to foster love of home and family life and to encourage the speaking of the
Irish language. This brief summary of its aims stamps it as an organisation which
should command the adherence and goodwill of every Irish woman. … The items on
the agenda for the public sessions of their meeting due to take place in Tralee, when
more than two hundred delegates will assemble … will come directly within the
province of our women – the teaching of domestic economy and homecrafts to all
girls. … We hope that the meeting in Tralee will be highly successful and that the
delegates will take away with them pleasant memories of their visit and the
knowledge that what they have done will advance the cause which is so dear to their
hearts.
Analysis Questions

Did the work of the ICA strengthen the association of women with
housewifery?

How is the political restraint of the Association articulated in its constitution?

To what extent did the ICA’s campaign for an improvement in rural living
offer women any realistic route into the public arena?

Did membership of the ICA offer any scope for a consideration of feminist
issues?

Is The Kerryman’s editorial typical of attitudes towards the involvement of
women in politics?
16

How does the editorial indicate that they are definite and separate roles for the
sexes? How does The Kerryman define these roles?

What does the editorial sees as the ICA’s role as a social movement? How
closely did the ICA conform to this role?
______________
17
Document 3
Extracts from the annual reports of the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and
Social Workers, 1956-60 (N.A.I. IHA Collection, 98/7/1/2/2).
The Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers was established
in 1935 to campaign on legal and social issues affecting women such as: raising the
age of consent to eighteen years; the provision of a women’s police force; the
appointment of more female probation officers. It also appealed to the government
from the empanelment of more women on juries. By 1942 a number of organisations
were affiliated to the ‘Joint Committee’ including the Irish Matrons’ Association, the
Women Graduates Association of Trinity College, the Mothers’ Union, the Legion of
Mary, the Irish Nurses Association and the Irish Women Workers’ Union. The *Irish
Housewives Association joined the Committee in 1946. Although primarily engaged
in work on consumer rights, the IHA also concerned itself in political matters. It ran
candidates in local and Dáil elections in the 1950s and regularly protested to the
Department of Justice about the leniency of sentences handed down to individuals
found guilty of indecent assault on women.
______________
Fifteenth Annual Report of the *IHA, 1956-57, pp 12-13.
Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers
The Minister of Health told us that he was doing all he could to improve the
children’s services for which his Department is responsible and that he continued to
promote any administrative measures, such as the employment of Children’s Officers,
which would lend to such improvement; amendments he had discussed with members
of our Committee had been included in his proposals for amendment of the Children
Acts and would appear in the Draft Bill to be promoted by the Minister of Education.
Our work for the establishment of a force of women police continues unceasingly.
Mrs [Celia] Lynch [Fianna Fáil T.D., Dublin South Central] asked a question for us in
the Dáil and was informed by the Minister for Justice that seven Councils had asked
him to consider the appointment of women police, but that he was unable to state
when a decision as to the appointment could be made. The Minister has never given
any reason publicly as to the cause of the long delay in reaching a decision. A number
of letters have also been sent by the committee to the Department expressing regret at
the leniency of sentences passed on offenders in cases of indecent assault on young
girls and the grave concern of our members at the increasing number cases of assault.
We have had help from various quarters. The *Irish Countrywomen’s Association
at their Council Meeting held in Galway in the autumn passed a resolution and sent it
to a Minister of Justice asking that there be no further delay in establishing a women
police force. They also sent a letter to their 22 Federations (representing 14,000
members) outlining plans for bringing pressure to bear on their local T.D.s.
Other Member societies, notably the Church of Ireland Moral Welfare Society and
the Mothers’ Union, have also given great assistance during the year and, as well,
individual members speaking at public meetings and by letters and articles in the
Press.
18
Before the General Election we sent a letter to the Fianna Fáil, the Fine Gael and
the Labour Parties concerning the Amendment of Children Acts, Women Police and
laws of inheritance. The two former promised sympathetic consideration of the
matters we mentioned and prompt attention if they took office.
It was a matter of great satisfaction that the *Irish Housewives Association had
the enterprise and vision to put forward candidates (3) at the General Election.
However, their action and that of independent women candidates in the Senate
Election demonstrates two important facts: (1) that women are becoming conscious of
the great, indeed unique, contribution they can make to the public life of the country,
(2) that, to be able to make that contribution, women must unite and loyally support
their standard bearers. …
Sixteenth Annual Report of the IHA, 1957-58, pp 9-10.
The Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers during the past
year was chiefly occupied with the following important questions:
(1) juvenile delinquency; (2) amendments to the Children’s Act; (3) Women
Police; (4) Raising of the Legal Marriage Age; (4) Inheritance Laws.
… (3) It was a further tribute to the efforts of the joint committee when the
Minister of Justice informed the chairman, Mrs. Kettle, that he proposed to introduce
legislation providing for the establishment of Women Police. This is a project which
the joint committee have been urging for many years. A memorandum was forwarded
to the Minister, embodying the views on conditions of service and training, education
and qualifications of recruits and particulars of type of work among women and
children where it seemed most essential to employ Women Police. …
(4) The legal age of marriage in this country – 12 years for girls, 14 years for
boys – has been a matter for concern for a long time. Discussions were held with
officials of the Office of the Register General to enquire into the possibility of raising
the ages and pointing out that this reform had been carried out in many countries and
was also recommended by Canon Law. The committee have been informed that
owing to many legal difficulties involved, legislation cannot be considered at the
present time.
(5) Inheritance laws as they effect women and children are in need of
amendment to prevent the injustices that exist at present. A deputation was received
by the Department of Justice and the views of the committee were given a
sympathetic hearing.
Seventeenth Annual Report of the IHA, 1958-59, pp 9-10.
Following our success in obtaining legislation establishing a force of women and
securing amendments in the Children Acts – amendments for which we have trying
this year to tie up loose ends and ensure satisfactory working of the new laws. In
connection with women police the Minister of Justice received a deputation from us
and we laid before him for his consideration our views with regard to the training and
work of the force, urging him at the same time that the contemplated number, viz. 12
was too small for the important work involved and should, as a beginning, be at least
double this number. The Minister emphasised that the force was only an experimental
one, and that, if satisfactory, the number would, no doubt, be increased. (It has now
19
been announced that there will be 12 in Dublin and 6 in Cork). The candidates are, at
present undergoing a course of training and will not appear in public for some months
yet. In the meantime our committee will work for a force under its own women
officers, with training in general police work and specialised training for dealing with
those problems connected with women and children for which they are more suited
than their male colleagues.
We hear constant rumours in connection with the Children (Amendment Act)
1957 that the provision in Section 2 (7) that foster homes for all illegitimate children,
whether placed for reward or not, should be notified to the local authority was, in
certain cases, not being carried out. We have been in communication with the
Minister of Education and the Dublin Corporation in an attempt to ensure that all
societies and private persons dealing with these children be made aware of the new
law and that there is no evasion. We also had an interview with Mrs. Lynch, T.D.
Work is still in progress.
Certain law cases during the year directed our attention once more to the
importance of having women on the juries. At present, women qualified have to make
special application and the result is that only a few public-spirited women apply. We
know of only one women – Mrs. Beatrice Dixon, who has of recent years sat on a
jury. We applied to the Minister of Justice asking him to have women included on the
Jury List on the same terms as men, but he replied that there was no public opinion
demanding a charge from the present system. We feel that there is such public opinion
but that it is not organised and clamant. Our first step towards such organisation has
been to contact our member societies asking for their co-operation and active help.
Eighteenth Annual Report of the IHA, 1959-60, pp 10-11.
With regard to the restoration of jury service to women, the member societies
passed resolutions asking for this right and forwarded them to the Minister of Justice.
The *I.C.A., having put the matter before their Guilds, 157 Guilds voted in favour of
a resolution ‘That the right and duty of Jury Service be on the same terms for women
as for men.’ Public opinion is increasingly in favour of the restoration of this right and
the work of arousing interest in the matter continues. …
Following reports in the press of a protest by the Ban-gardai on the scale of their
allowances in lieu of accommodation, letters were sent to the Minister of Justice
stressing the need for an equitable rate of pay and allowances, if recruits of suitable
type and good standard of education were to be attracted to the service. It was further
suggested that a hostel should be provided for the Ban-gardai. …
Analysis Questions

What were the key demands of the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and
Social Workers?

What did the Irish Housewives Association hope to achieve by running
candidates in Dáil elections?

What tactics were employed by the joint committee?
20

What evidence in the reports suggests that women still had much to do to
achieve full equality in law?

How useful were the women’s organisations affiliated to the joint committee
in generating a gradual awareness of the inequalities and injustices faced by
Irish women?

Were these organisations feminist pioneers? Can these traditional
organisations be placed in the vanguard of the women’s movement? Why
were the efforts of these organisations treated dismissively by many younger
feminists involved in the women’s movement of the early 1970s?
______________
21
Document 4
The resolutions and working programme adopted by the xix th Congress of the
*International Alliance of Women, Dublin, 21 Aug.-2 Sept. 1961 (N.A.I. Department
of Foreign Affairs, 335/638).
In 1947 the Irish Women’s Citizens’ Association, a direct descendant of earlier
suffrage organisations, merged with the *Irish Housewives Association, thus bringing
the latter into affiliation with the *International Alliance of Women (IAW). Contacts
with the international women’s movement revitalized Irish women’s calls for full
equality of citizenship. *Hilda Tweedy, the chairwoman of the I.H.A., represented
Ireland at many IAW conferences. Ester Graff, the president of the IAW, visited
Ireland in 1957 and was received by the Irish President, Sean T. O’Kelly. In 1961 the
Alliance congress was held in Dublin and received an official welcome from the
government. Even the notoriously conservative archbishop of Dublin, Dr. J.C.
McQuaid, made the Institute of Catholic Sociology available as a venue for the
various sessions. The event was an unqualified success for the Irish women’s
movement. Over 200 representatives from 29 countries attended the congress and
examined the status of women from a variety of perspectives.
______________
XIX th Triennial Congress
International Alliance of Women
21st August – 2nd September, 1961
Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology, 62-63 Eccles Street, Dublin, Ireland
‘TOWARDS EQUALITY’
21st August – Monday
Registration of delegates
Board Meeting
Press Conferences
Formal Opening of ceremony
Reception to Delegates by Irish
Housewives’ Association – Mansion House
29th August - Tuesday
Justice for Women in the Courts,
Legal Aid, marriage contracts,
Women’s charter, Prostitution
The committees on Equal
Economic Rights and International understanding will meet
separately at the Secretariat
during the round-table discussion
22nd August – Tuesday
24th August – Thursday
Equal Economic Rights
Summary of findings and
adoption of Resolutions.
Plenary Session
President’s Report
Admission Committee Report
Congress Programme and Procedures
22
The Women of Ireland speak
‘Women under Irish Law’
Dr. Frances Moran
‘Irish Folklore’ – Maura de Paoir
Reception by Irish government at Iveagh House
International Understanding
Summary of findings and
adoption of Resolutions
23rd August – Wednesday
‘Towards Equal Economic Rights’
Age of Retirement and Rights to Pension
Outlook for Women in Economic Life
25th August – Friday
‘Towards Equal Civil and
Political Rights’
Women in Public Life
Women in Family Law
Matrimonial Property Rights
Tax legislation
Inheritance laws
Guardianship of Children
‘Towards International Understanding’
Support for the United Nations
Discriminations based on Race, Sex, Colour,
Creed
U.N. Convention on Human Rights
Education in Foreign Affairs
Exchange of People
International Scholarships
Children born out of wedlock
– Round table discussion
The civil and political rights committee
will meet separately in the secretariat
during the above Round Table discussion
‘My rights – My duties’ – Danish Play – films.
26th August – Saturday
Equal Civil and Political Rights
Summary of findings and adoption of resolution
Informal Conferences
Time for ‘May I have a word with you?’
28th August – Monday
Plenary Session
Treasurer’s Report
Fund Raising Committee Report
Congress Pledges.
Activities, Reports of Affiliated Societies.
29th August – Tuesday
‘Towards Equal Educational Rights’
Free and Compulsory Primary Education
Adult Education
Vocational guidance and school leavers.
‘Towards Equal Moral Standard’
Age of Marriage, Free Consent and
Registration of Marriages
Ritual Operations (Operations based on
30th August – Wednesday
Africa ‘Baraza’
Symposium on Women in Africa
The Committees on Equal
Education and Equal Moral
Standard will meet separately in
the Secretariat during the Africa
‘Baraza’
Nominations will close at 4.30pm
31st August – Thursday
Plenary Session
Equal Educational Standards
Summary of findings and
adoption of resolutions.
Equal Moral Standards
Summary of findings and
adoption of resolutions.
Free Afternoon.
I.A.W. Congress Dinner at the
Shelbourne Hotel.
1st September - Friday
Election of President
‘From Strength to Strength’
In the National Societies – in
the I.A.W.
Election of members of the Board
Afternoon excursion to Glenda-lough.
23
Custom).
Enforcement abroad of maintenance obligations
Abolition of Female Slavery, the Slave trade
and Institutions and Practice similar to slavery.
2nd September – Saturday
Plenary Session
Any other business
Closing of the Congress.
Meeting of the new board
Meeting of the International
Committee.
______________
The Working Programme of the International Alliance of Women, 1960-63
The I.A.W. will strive under the headings below to work
through its Affiliated Societies:
I. Equal Civil and Political Rights
(a) To achieve a more proportionate number of women members of parliaments and
local councils by:
1. The initiation of country-wide education in civic responsibility utilizing,
according to their possibilities, the following means:
(1) Measures to secure that instruction in citizenship be given to both sexes at
every stage of the school curriculum with a view to making citizens conscious
of their civic responsibility.
(2) Measures to ensure that home economics and child care shall be taught to both
sexes at every stage of the school curriculum.
(3) Measures to secure the application of modern methods in the organisation of
the household; the development of crèches, nursery schools, holiday camps
and the general provision of mid-day meals at school.
(4) Use of influence on the Press, Radio and Television so that they may teach
civic responsibility to citizens.
(5) Organisation in town and country of gatherings or lectures followed by
discussions with the object of pointing out to women their civic responsibility
as citizens.
2. The organisation of practical political study courses in all branches of
affiliated societies with a view to encouraging women in all countries to stand
for Parliament and local government bodies.
(b) To secure the inclusion of article 16 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights in Article 22 of the Covenant of Application in respect to
the wording concerning equality of spouses as to marriage, during
marriage and its dissolution which provides only that ‘legislation of States
should be directed towards, instead of that of the Declaration providing
that legislation insure the equality of spouses;
(c) To promote equality of matrimonial property rights by urging governments
to put their national legislation into conformity with the terms of Art. 16 of
the Declaration of Human Rights by means of legislation ensuring the
equality of rights of both husband and wife over their separate property
24
and over the joint or community property, if such property is provided for
by national law.
(d) To secure better tax legislation affecting women by recommending that in
countries concerned affiliated societies take all steps necessary to obtain a
modification of the tax legislation in their own countries, so as to provide
for separate taxation of the incomes of husband and wife.
(e) To provide for international laws of guardianship of children by asking
governments to place this question on the agenda of the Status of Women
Commission of the U.N.
II. Equal Educational Rights
(a) To ensure free and equal education for boys and girls between the ages
of 12 and 16 years by urging governments to adopt appropriate
measures.
(b) To make higher education available on equal terms for men and
women by urging governments to adopt suitable means.
III Equal Moral Standard
(a) To take the following steps:
1. To appoint a special committee, with a national Chairman to investigate in selected
areas conditions which lead to prostitution.
2. To ensure that those who exploit the prostitution of others are in fact punished by
the law of the country; to consider whether these laws are sufficiently severe.
3. To consider and recommend forms of action likely to raise the standard of social
thinking on prostitution with a special reference to the fact that the problem is
fundamentally one of demand. …
(c) To press for a draft convention of the U.N. on:
1. Minimum legal age of marriage
2. Free consent to marriage.
3. Compulsory registration of marriages.
IV Equal Economic Rights
(a) To study the problems raised by the dual role of women.
(b) For the establishment of the technical vocational, and welfare services for
women in gainful employment.
(c) To urge that a permanent tripartite committee be established at International
Labour Organisation by urging governments, employers and workers’
federations to request such a committee to deal with the problems of women
workers on a long term basis.
25
Analysis Questions

What were the principal issues of interest discussed at the IAW congress in
Dublin?

What can the issues raised at the congress tell us about the primary concerns
of Irish feminists in the early 1960s?

Are there any topics which are particularly indicative of a progressive feminist
agenda?

In 1952, an application from the *Irish Housewives Association for
government funding to send delegates to an IAW congress in Naples was
refused on the grounds that the aims of the Alliance were ‘in no sense
cultural.’ (N.A.I. Department of Foreign Affairs, 438/217).
How do you account for the government’s change of heart in 1961?

How much importance does the IAW attach to the political education of
women?

How did exposure to the international women’s movement alter the viewpoint
of Irish feminists?
______________
26
Towards Equal Rights
Document 5
Report on a meeting of the ad hoc Committee of Women’s Organisations on the
Status of Women, 5 May 1968 (N.L.I. Records of the ICA, MS 39, 866/3).
In 1967, the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women issued a
directive to women’s non-governmental organisations to examine the status of women
in their respective countries and, where necessary, to urge governments to set up a
national commission. Women’s rights organisations in Ireland decided to press the
government to establish a commission to examine such issues as equal pay for equal
work, discrimination against married women in employment, the unfair taxation of
women and inequality in education. In 1968 an ad hoc committee of representatives
from various women’s associations was formed which lobbied the government on the
issue of a commission. This committee was crucial in laying the groundwork for
many of the legislative reforms and other measures which helped to bring about
changes for the better in women’s lives in the ensuing decade. In October 1968 a
memorandum was sent to the taoiseach, Jack Lynch, which unambiguously stated the
committee’s objectives.
______________
Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women
At a meeting held on 5th May, 1968. Following organisations represented: *Irish
Housewives, Business and Professional Women, Soroptimists, Women Graduates of
N.U.I, Women Graduates of T.C.D., Irish Council of Women, Irish Women Citizens,
Mothers’ Union, Women Zionists, and *I.C.A. Organisations reported on their
findings to the subject:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Business and Professional Women – In favour of asking government to
set up a Commission on the Status of Women – to study Vocational
training, civic responsibility, physical education, equal educational facilities
for boys and girls, training and retraining courses for older women,
retirement age, prejudice against single women and widows in obtaining
mortgages and H.P. agreements. – Encouragement of women to take part in
public life. They drew attention to recent U.N. Conference in Teheran
advocating equality of man and woman in every field.
Irish Council of Women – Would urge the government to implement the
Declaration of Human Rights, and if we enter E.E.C. we must adhere to the
Treaty of Rome. In both these commitments women may not be
discriminated against.
Women Graduates (T.C.D.) – In favour of Commission, it should be a
small body – permanently in session – not controlled by the government –
able to publicise every individual case of discrimination.
Women Graduates (N.U.I.) – In favour of Commission, Women’s
organisations should be prepared to nominate representatives for the
commission.
*Irish Housewives and Women Citizens both felt that a permanent
commission might be too slow to move – would prefer an ad hoc committee
27
6.
to start with – to report within 18 months on job opportunities and equal
pay.
*Irish Countrywomen’s Association – Commission should have a
majority of women. The representation should be picked by the
organisations themselves rather than be appointed by the government.
The following organisations undertook to make enquiries about different aspects
of discrimination:
Soroptimists: Taxation.
Women Citizens: Job opportunities, salaries in state and semi-state bodies.
Irish Housewives and Women Zionists: Legal discrimination.
Business and Professional Women: Retirement age, pension rights and mortgages.
Women Graduates (N.U.I. and T.C.D.): Opportunities in employment, position of
graduates, by passing of women for promotion.
Cases of discrimination in job opportunities were reported by the *I.C.A. (Bord
Failte Guest House Inspector), *I.H.A. (Institute of Industrial Research and Standards
– technical and professional staff), I.W.C. (semi-state bodies). Miss Mills instanced
the case of a headmistress losing her job when a school was merged with another
which has a headmaster.
Each organisation was asked to submit to the secretary before next meeting on
th
11 June, the subjects which its members consider as priorities.
An emergency meeting was called on 28th May 1968 to consider the advisability
of issuing a Press statement in view of the information that a Resolution to ask for a
commission on the status of women would be coming up at the Irish Congress of
Trade Unions in Killarney opening that day.
The following organisations agreed to the sending of a statement to the press:
Soroptimists, W.I.Z.O, Women Graduates of T.C.D. and N.U.I., Business and
Professional Women, I.H.A. and I.C.A. – the statement was issued to 4 national
dailies, 2 evening papers, Telefis Eireann and Radio Eireann.
______________
2. Draft letter from the ad hoc Committee of Women’s Organisations to Jack Lynch,
enclosing a memorandum requesting the setting up of a National Commission on the
Status of Women, 16 October 1968 (N.L.I. Records of the *ICA, MS 39, 866/3).
Encouraged by frequent remarks made by government ministers regarding the
desirability of women taking a greater part in public life and of their receiving equal
remuneration for work of equal value with men, an Ad Hoc Committee consisting of
representatives of the leading women’s organisations in the country was set up in
January last to discuss the legal, political, civil and social problems affecting women
in this country.
The members of this Committee, representing the undermentioned women’s
organisations, now present their findings in the enclosed memorandum and request
the favour of an interview to discuss it.
28
Association of Irish Widows
Association of Women Citizens
Business and Profession Women’s Clubs of the Republic of Ireland
Irish Council of Women
*Irish Countrywomen’s Association
*Irish Housewives Association
Soroptimists Clubs of the Republic of Ireland
Dublin University Women Graduates’ Association
University College Dublin Women Graduates’ Association
Chairman: *Hilda Tweedy.
Ad Hoc Committee.
Secretary: Blanche Weekes.
Memorandum on the Status of Women in Ireland
FEELING strongly the needs of this country for equal opportunities for women as
compared with men, the women’s organisations detailed above have formed an Ad
Hoc Committee to look into the cases of discrimination against women,
CONSIDERING that Ireland in the Charter of the United Nations has reaffirmed
faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and
the equal rights of men and women.
CONCERNED that despite progress made in the matter of equality of rights, there
continues to exist considerable discrimination against women in Ireland.
CONCERNED that the full and complete development of a country, the welfare
of the world and the cause of peace requires the maximum participation of women as
well as men in all fields,
The members of the above organisations ask the government to set up a National
Commission on the Status of Women.
Analysis Questions

What views are expressed by the different women’s organisations on the
desirability of establishing a commission to investigate the status of women?
What issues are identified by the committee as requiring particular attention?

What evidence is supplied by the women’s organisations to support their
claims of discrimination?

What factors led to the increased receptivity to political activity of the older
established women’s organisations in the late 1960s?

How radical was the demand made by women for a committee to investigate
inequality? How significant was the fact that the call for a Commission on the
Status of Women was made by those who not been previously noted for their
radicalism?

What was the impact of the actions of the ad hoc committee?
29
Document 6
*Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, Irishwomen: Chains or Change, Dublin, 1971
(N.A.I. D/T 2002/8/60).
Even as the traditional branches of the women’s movement were gaining
unprecedented official recognition, a more radical group of women was mobilising
and recruiting in tandem. The *Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM) began
in 1970 with a meeting in Bewley’s café on Westmoreland Street, Dublin. Inspired by
the autonomous direct action used by radicals in the American’s women’s movement,
the methods of protest adopted by the IWLM were highly controversial and attractive
to the media. In 1971 the IWLM’s manifesto Chains or Change was published. The
pamphlet outlined only five demands: equal pay, equality before the law, equal
education, contraception and justice for deserted wives, unmarried mothers and
widows. It suggested that the condition of single women was far better than those who
were married. It also drew attention to the advantages of ‘living in sin’. The detailed
spelling out of the extent of discrimination in the pamphlet was deeply shocking to
many Irish women who had hitherto remained aloof from the liberation movement.
______________
Equal Rights for Irish Women!
Do you think its just that ………………….. for every 26p (5s 3d) that a woman
earns, her male counterpart gets 47p (9s
6d)?
Do you think its just that ………………….. The Civil Service and all State Bodies,
including Radio Telefis Eireann, sack
women upon marriage?
Do you think its just that ………………….. The tax structure actively works against
women.
Do you know that …………………………. a mother is not permitted to sign a
children’s allowance receipt without her
husband’s permission?
Do you know that …………………………. a wife’s official domicile is wherever her
husband is, no matter where she actually
is.
Do you know that …………………………. A man is not legally bound to reveal his
earnings to his wife though she is bound
to reveal hers to his.
Do you know that …………………………. A woman must have a male guarantor to
open most credit accounts or HP
arrangements.
Do you know that …………………………. A wife may not take out a passport for
herself and her children without her
husband’s permission, though he may do
so without her permission.
30
Do you care that …………………………... Irish women are not called upon for jury
service, therefore you may not be judged
by your peers.
Do you care that …………………………... a husband does not have to give his wife
any allowance above and beyond what
he considers as the bare necessity.
Do you care that …………………………... a deserted wife must prove to the
authorities that her husband has not sent
her any money before she can get
welfare.
Do you care that …………………………... girls do better at secondary school, but
have fewer places in universities and less
than one per cent of people in the higher
professions are women.
Do you care that …………………………... when a woman pensioner dies, her
dependents may not inherit benefits,
while in the same situation, a man’s
dependents may.
Irishwomen Are Cheap Labour!
Strike Now For Equal Pay and Civil Rights!
Five Good Reasons why it is better to live in sin
No. 1 You can keep your job. If you’re in the Civil Service or semi-state body
employment, working for the trade unions or the banks, you’ll go without further
debate. This is not to say you won’t necessarily be re-hired. In some places, you will
be on temporary, week-to-week basis as the company needs you. This is true in many
semi-state bodies. You’ll also probably be re-hired for less pay and in a lower grade
than what you enjoy, if that’s the word, now. If you’re in the Civil Service, you and
the man you decided not to marry can have two children and you’ll still be able to
keep your job; you will have a maternity leave of several months. We make the point
not to criticise the Civil Service for its responsible treatment of unmarried mothers,
only to ask you why they feel less responsible toward married women even before
they have children. To marry is to accept compulsory retirement until an age when
your children are old enough so that you can try to find part-time work. So that 15
years from now, you’ll find yourself back in the labour force, probably not in a trade
union, and therefore unable to fight dismissal, low pay, poor conditions. Many of the
skills you may have required by this time will be lost by then and you’ll probably
have to take unskilled work or less pay. ….
No. 2 If you decide not to marry, you won’t have to pay more income tax on your
earnings than you pay now. As a single women, you are allowed only £7.2.0 of what
you earn tax free; the rest is taxed at 5/3 in the pound. A married women is allowed
only £2.0.0. tax free. So if your wage is now £15.2.0 a week, you pay £2.0.0 in tax;
once you’ve gone through an official ceremony, you’ll pay £3.7.0. in tax. It is true
that your husband will gain something in tax-free allowance, usually moving from
£7.2.0 to £25 or thereabouts. Once your combined earnings go over £2,000 however –
which they will if he’s earning £26 a week – you’ll pay 7/ in the pound in tax ….
31
Essentially the situations is that two singly people with a combined income of £41 a
week pay roughly £7.4.6 in tax. As soon as they’re married they’ll pay about £9.14.6.
No. 3 reason is that by staying single you’ll keep whatever business identity you now
have. Once you marry, you will be unable to open a charge account without your
husband’s signature, even if you have a job or a checking account. Most hire-purchase
arrangements will be closed to you without your husband’s approval.
Many motor insurance companies insist on your husband’s signature, even if the
car is yours. You will have difficulty transacting any business arrangement which is
one reason why a good number of housewives have to resort to illegal money lenders.
A married woman cannot even apply for the children’s allowance, which is legally her
husband’s. And her husband’s signature is also required in certain hospitals for
gynaecological operations. If her friends or children get in trouble with the law, a
married woman will be denied the right to stand bail unless her home is owned in her
own name.
Just to make sure your status as a married woman is that of a total dependent the
law sees to it that a wife has no statutory right to force her husband to give her any
money at all, no matter how much he earns or how much he feeds.
The first three reasons for living in sin are sound practical ones. Anyone on the
brink of marriage isn’t likely to consider reasons four and five too closely, because
she doesn’t think too deeply about the possibility of the relationship going sour.
Marriages have turned out badly for many people though. A woman who’s only living
in sin can remember reason Number Four: you can leave when things have finally
become unbearable, merely by walking out the door. A married woman who leaves
her husband is presumed to have deserted him, and has no right to his house, furniture
or income.
Which brings us to Number Five: if you live in sin you don’t submit to the insult
that society offers woman who marry, the status of property. An adult and equal
relationship is something two people forge together. The institution of marriage is
something invented to preserve male superiority and a system of female chattels.
Analysis Questions

Are the demands of the IWLM stated in a confrontational manner? Would you
consider Chains or Change to be an effective political manifesto?

How do you account for the success of Chains or Change in shocking public
opinion into an awareness of discrimination?

To what extent are the issues raised in Chains or Change similar to the
concerns addressed in the memorandum from the ad hoc committee on the
status of women (document 5)?

How does the language of Chains or Change differ from that employed by
traditional and reformist women’s organisations in earlier documents?

How would you summarise the pamphlet’s stance on ‘living in sin’?

Did the Irish women’s movement of the early 1970s advocate a radical
overhaul of society? How interested was the movement in generating a greater
awareness of individual discrimination?
32
Document 7
A letter to Jack Lynch on Senator Mary Robinson’s bill to amend the Criminal Law
(Amendment) Act of 1935, 15 March 1971 (N.A.I. D/T 2002/8/458).
The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act (1935), section 17, proscribed the sale of all
recognised methods of family planning whilst the Censorship of Publication Act
(1929), section 7, prohibited all literature which advocated the ‘unnatural prevention
of conception.’ The state’s ban on the importation of contraceptives was reinforced by
Catholic teaching. In 1968, Humanae Vitae, a doctrinal statement by the Vatican,
reiterated the opposition of the Church to artificial methods of contraception. By the
late 1960s, however, the issues surrounding family planning had managed to creep
onto the national agenda. In 1971 Mary Robinson introduced a bill in the senate to
facilitate the open sale and distribution of contraceptives. On 22 May 1971 members
of the *Irish Women’s Liberation Movement made a highly publicised trip to Belfast
on what became known as the ‘contraceptive train’. The Church reacted negatively to
these developments and sought reassurances from the government that no attempt
would be made to legalise the sale of contraceptives in Ireland. In her letter to the
taoiseach, Anne Doyle, a Dublin nurse, attacks the repressiveness of the law in regard
to the prohibition of artificial contraceptives, and argues that excessive childbirth was
a major cause of stress and health problems for Irish women.
______________
It appears that the laws on contraception are to go the same way as Dr. Noel
Brown’s ‘Mother and child scheme’ of some twenty years ago. The prophets of doom
have spoken again. The Catholic Hierarchy have asked the legislators to respect the
wishes of the people. I would like to know to whose wishes they are referring. Is it the
wishes of the middle class paragons of virtue who are not personally affected by these
laws and who have the leisure time to writer letters to the papers telling the rest of us
how we should save our souls. The law on contraception only concerns women.
Women are the only ones to suffer either physically or mentally by having too many
children. The women who are affected by this repressive law have not got time and
are not articulate enough to write to the papers. As a social worker and a nurse I must
speak out about this hypocrisy.
Mr. Oliver Flanagan1 says Christian Ireland is being ruined by drink, drugs and
sex. I wonder would he be in favour of closing all our pubs. Drink has done more to
wreck family life than sex, and what about gambling which is also a wrecker of
homes. It is illegal to advertise bingo yet it is advertised from the pulpits of Ireland
every Sunday. Apparently a blind eye can be turned to everything except the law
which discriminates against women. If Mr. Flanagan thinks that his party are going to
get into power by opposing this Bill he is in for a rude awakening because the women
of Ireland will give him his answer at the next election.
It is very easy for people to offer fine theories and tell us that contraception is a
moral evil when they are not personally affected. If men were having the babies
contraception would never have been made a moral evil but women, being considered
inferior by the Church, and having no voice in the matter, were forced to accept these
rulings by men who never experienced the misery and hardship of too much
1
Oliver Flanagan was a Fine Gael T.D. for Laois/Offaly who argued against the bill put down in
Seanad Éireann by Senator Mary Robinson on the grounds that it would lead to an increase in ‘sex
speculators, legalised brothels, deserted wives and alcoholism.’
33
childbearing. I would suggest that the clergy and politicians who do not want this law
changed spend a month in one of our city slums where many women have to bring up
six children in one room or visit the maternity hospital where I work to see the large
number of women who must have major operations brought about the by the effects
of too much childbirth …
The women of Ireland are being denied basic human rights. For too long they
have been rearing large families and brought sons into the world who grow up to treat
them as second class citizens. They pay great attention to women’s spiritual welfare
and great attention to their own material welfare. If Irish women talk of injustices or
discrimination they are treated as a troublesome burden. I would also say to the
majority in Northern Ireland that they would be crazy to join us and to the minority I
would say that, if you join us, you would merely be exchanging one type of
discrimination for another.
I would appeal to the women of Ireland, even if they are not personally affected
by the law on contraception, to spare a thought for the many poor women who are
living in poverty and physically and mentally ill as a result of too much childbearing –
I come across it every day of my life. It is downright discrimination against women by
men who are completely ignorant of this matter but who are excellent at putting up
arguments to convince us that they are doing the right thing when it is case of ‘I’m
alright Jack.’
The medical profession say that many women’s lives are endangered because of
the unavailability of contraceptives. If it was the lives of men that were in danger
there would be a public outcry against this law but a belt of Humanae Vitae
[Encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI ‘on the right ordering of the procreation of
children,’ 1968] across the teeth is good enough for women. It appears that the clergy
and some laymen know more about his subject than the medical profession.
P.S. Mr. Lynch, if you back down on this Bill you cannot deny that the Catholic
Church is wielding the big stick here just as they did 20 years ago with Dr. Noel
Brown.
C.C. Mr. Jack Lynch, Mr. Patrick Hillery, Senator Mary Robinson, Cardinal Conway,
Dr. McQuaid, Mr. Garret Fitzgerald, Mr. Michael O’Leary, Mr. Brendan Corish,
Fianna Fáil Party, Fine Gael Party, Labour Party, Miss Mary Kenny, Irish Press, Miss
Mary Maher, Irish Times, Mrs Monica McEnroy, *Irish Housewives Association,
*I.C.A, Mr. Gay Byrne, R.T.E., Mr. Liam Nolan, R.T.E.
Analysis Questions

Why does the letter’s author assert that contraception was a basic issue for
women’s liberation?

What had been the effects of the denial of a woman’s right to control her own
fertility?

What warning does she give to politicians?
34

How important was the contraceptive issue in maintaining a radical focus
amongst political women in the Irish feminist movement? Why had
contraception failed to emerge as a serious feminist demand in Ireland before
the 1970s?

What problems did the campaign for access to artificial birth control cause the
wider women’s movement in Ireland? What kind of response did the issue of
contraceptive rights illicit from the movement’s rank and file supporters?
______________
35
Document 8
An extract from the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women (Prl 2760)
(Dublin, 1973).
After a long delay the government finally agreed to establish the Commission on
the Status of Women on 31 March 1969. The distinguished civil servant, Dr. *Thekla
Beere was appointed chairwoman. The commission received submissions from 41
groups, including the *Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and the *Irish
Housewives Association. An interim report, published in October 1971,
recommended the implementation of equal pay and suggested that the prohibition on
married women in public service employment be removed. The commission’s final
report was published in 1973 and devoted an entire chapter to the underlying factors
which had limited women’s participation in public life. The Irish educational system
had encouraged girls to think in terms of a relatively short period of gainful
employment, followed by marriage and a retreat into domestic life. The report listed
49 recommendations, 17 of which related to equal pay and women in employment. It
called for an end to sex discrimination in employment and the provision of twelve
weeks maternity leave. Widely seen as the charter for women in the modern Irish
state, the commission’s report presaged a major change in the attitude of Irish
governments to the role of women in society.
______________
In general … the picture presented of women’s involvement in politics is one of
relatively small participation at local level, with a progressive decline of involvement
at the higher levels. This, of course, is true of women’s participation in many other
areas where the promotion of women comes up against serious obstacles and
traditional attitudes. … There is a strong indication that women are themselves in a
certain measure to blame for this situation by displaying a considerable degree of
apathy. It has also been suggested that women’s educational background is at fault
and that even equality of access to education the present large of segregated education
operates to preserve a traditional division of interests between the sexes. In politics,
this manifests itself in the orientation of women to believe that political power and
activity is primarily for men. There is clearly a great need for really impressing on
girls that they have a part to play in political life and that the general failure of women
to participate more fully in political activity can only operate to their disadvantage.
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women has drawn attention to the
part that education must play in this matter and has referred to the necessity for an
intensive programme of civic and political training to ensure that women realise the
full extent of their rights and that civic education be available at all educational levels,
including adult educational institutes.
In addition, the political parties themselves should make a greater effort to attract
women members and to let it be seen that they welcome them. Once they become
members, they should be treated equally with men and should be given posts of
responsibility in the organisation on merit. Progress of women within parties will be
clearly related to their willingness to work hard and to perform congenial tasks where
necessary. The women’s organisations, also, have a part to play in providing training
in public speaking and civics and encouraging a greater political and social awareness
among their members even if the organisations themselves are not party-political. …
36
2. An editorial welcoming the publication of the Report of the Commission on the
Status of Women (Irish Times, 9 May 1973).
A Proper Place
The Report of the Commission on the Status of Women published today, is an
encouraging and intelligent document, thus fulfilling the expectations aroused by the
1971 Interim Report on Equal Pay. It is not necessary to belong to Women’s Lib to
realise how much inequality there is in the treatment of women by employers, both in
public and private sectors; by law; under social welfare schemes; by hire purchase
firms; building societies, banks and so forth.
The purpose of the 13 members of the Commission, who were unanimous in their
findings ‘was to examine and report on the status of women in Irish society, to make
recommendations on the steps necessary to ensure the participation of women on
equal terms and conditions with men in the political, social, cultural and economic life
of the country and to indicate the implications generally – including the estimated cost
– of such recommendations.’ …
The Commission concluded that the Labour Court should investigate complaints
of discrimination against women in access to employment, training or promotion.
Restrictions on women’s entry to skilled employment should be removed over a
number of years. … Disputes about equal pay should be referred to the Court and an
award by the Court should be recoverable from an employer as a civil debt. In the
Civil Service and the teaching profession there are two salary scales, one for married
men and the other (20%) lower for women and single men.
Among Civil Servants there is a franker form of sex discrimination; women
receive about 80% of the male scale. The Commission now proposes where there are
sex differentiated scales women should be placed on the same scale. Where there are
marriage differentiated scales women and single men should receive the married
men’s scales.
Where men and women are doing the same work of equal value, it is
recommended that the rate of pay to women should be increased annually by 5% of
the male rate or male married rate. The full application of equal pay should be
completed by December 31st, 1977.
A woman should be allowed to continue in her job after marriage. Collective
agreements or service contracts requiring women retire on marriage or restricting the
number of married women that may be employed should be declared illegal. The
exclusion of a woman from a pension scheme on the grounds that she is married
should be prohibited. … The Commission feels that women in insurable employment
should be entitled to a minimum of 12 weeks maternity leave and should receive
payments from the social insurance fund. In addition she should have the option of
taking four more weeks without pay or social welfare benefits. It recommends that the
Department of Labour should draw up regulations to prohibit the dismissal of women
on the grounds of pregnancy … [and] the government should ensure that openings for
the jobs under its control are not advertised in a manner limiting them to male or
female applicants except where sex is a bona fide occupational qualification or
women are not permitted by law to be employed. …
37
The wife should have legal title to children’s allowances, but she should be
allowed to nominate her husband for payment. The housekeeper allowance payable to
single men and widowers with dependent children while they are receiving
unemployment or disability benefit should be extended to single women and widows
in similar circumstances. … Deserted wives should not have to wait six months before
receiving an allowance; it should be paid earlier at the discretion of the Department of
Social Welfare.
A number of changes in the law are recommended by the Commission. It is
concluded that the legal obligation to support the family should rest on both the
husband and wife according to their means and capacity. Neither spouse should have
the power to dispose of the matrimonial home without consulting the other spouse.
Where agreement is not reached a period should be allowed to expire before disposal
takes place. The courts should have the power during this period to decide whether
undue hardship would be caused to the other spouse by the disposal of the home. …
Information and expert advice on family planning should be available through
medical and other appropriate channels to families throughout the country. The moral
and personal attitudes of each married couple should be respected. The report also
suggests that medical requirements arising out of a married couple’s decision on
family planning should be available under the control of, and through channels to be
determined by the Department of Health.
The 277-page report of the Commission contains 49 detailed recommendations
and 17 suggestions. … It points out that in March 1972 the average hourly earnings of
women were 37.6 pence as compared with 65.6 pence for men; women’s hourly
earnings were about 57% of those of men. … The Commission expects that one of the
effects of equal pay will be an expansion of employment opportunities for women in
skilled and technical employments and that another will be a restructuring of the
female labour force with the general effect of promoting a more efficient use of
women workers. …
Analysis Questions

What picture does the Commission paint of Irish women’s formal involvement
in party politics?

Why does the report suggest that women themselves are to blame for their
lowly political status?

What role did the educational system play in conditioning girls to think solely
in terms of a stereotyped role centred on domestic life?

What does the Irish Times see as the primary thrust of the Commission’s
report? Why does the paper welcome the report?

What recommendations does report make in relation to family planning and
the use of birth control? Are the proposals in this area radical or conservative?

How far-reaching were the Commission’s recommendations? To what extent
did it facilitate a dramatic change in the economic and political position of
Irish women?
38
3. Ancillary Material
Key Terms
International Alliance of Women (IAW)
Established in the United States in 1902 by Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman,
the organisation was originally established to campaign for women’s suffrage. It was
formally constituted at a congress in Berlin in 1904 as ‘The International Women’s
Suffrage Alliance’. Its goals were to ‘ensure the enfranchisement of women of all
nations’ and to secure ‘all such reforms as are necessary to establish a real equality of
liberties, status and opportunities between men and women.’ The IAW developed
close links with other international bodies and was instrumental in setting the agenda
for the Commission on the Status of Women set up by the United Nations in the late
1950s.
Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA)
Founded in 1911 at Bree, County Wexford by Anita Letts as the Society of United
Irishwomen. The Association was committed to creating ‘a healthy and progressive
community life’ and to making rural life more lively and enjoyable. An avowedly
non-political and non-sectarian organisation, its interests ranged from the promotion
of hygiene to the preservation of the Irish language. To avoid confusion with the
recently established United Ireland party (Fine Gael), the U.I. became the ICA in
1934. An Grianán, a residential college at Termonfeckin, County Louth was
established in 1956 and is used as a venue for summer schools. The Association
enjoyed a steady growth in its early years. Total membership in 1940 was over 2,000
but it soared rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. It consistently called for the connection
of rural homes to both electrical and water supplies. Along with other mainstream
women’s organisations, the ICA was an affiliate of the Joint Committee of Women’s
Societies and Social Workers and campaigned on a variety of issues affecting the
legal and social standing of Irishwomen.
Irish Housewives Association (IHA)
In 1941, a small group of women led by Hilda Tweedy and Andrée SheehySkeffington (daughter-in-law of the noted Irish feminist, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington)
formed a pressure group and drew up a petition dubbed ‘the Housewives Petition’ for
presentation to the government. Signed by over 600 women, the petition achieved
some success with the introduction of a system of fair rationing to cope with wartime
shortages. Building on the momentum generated by the petition, a new women’s
organisation was formed in May 1942. The original aim of the Irish Housewives
Association was to ‘unite housewives, so that they may realise, and gain recognition
for their right to play an active part in all spheres of planning for the community.’ The
immediate goals were the protection of consumer rights and the provision of school
meals but the Association soon adopted a broad feminist agenda committed to
achieving a real equality of liberties, status and opportunities for Irish women. In
1946 the IHA adopted its first constitution. A largely middle-class and urban
organisation, the IHA was dominated in its early years by Protestant women. In 1947
the Association became an affiliate of the International Alliance of Women thus
39
providing Irish women with a link with the international women’s movement of the
1960s. In 1967, the IHA received a directive from the U.N. Commission on the Status
of Women and, along with other women’s organisations, began to agitate for the
setting up of a national commission to examine discrimination against women in Irish
society. It was instrumental in creating the ad hoc committee which pressed the
government on the issue of a commission. After the Report of the Commission on the
Status of Women was published in 1973, the IHA joined the Council set up to monitor
the implementation of the Report. The IHA never managed to shake off its middle
class image and its failure to make itself more appealing to younger women ensured
its demise. It was officially dissolved in 1992.
Irish Women’s Liberation Movement
The Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM) began in 1970 with a meeting in
Bewley’s Café on Westmoreland Street, Dublin, of five women who had gained
notoriety in radical left-wing circles during the 1960s. It was led primarily by a small
group of journalists, political (mainly socialist women and republican activists) and
professional women. American feminists who arrived in Dublin brought with them
news of the success of conscious-raising sessions in the States and many women in
the IWLM were determined to replicate this style of activism in Ireland. The
movement made effective use of direct action, participatory democracy and dramatic
media events. Its manifesto, Irishwomen: Chains or Change (1971) sought equal pay,
access to education, full equality before the law, free access to contraception, justice
for deserted wives, single mothers and widows, and a fair distribution of housing. In
March 1971, members of the IWLM made a highly publicised appearance on the
popular television show, The late late show. The first public meeting was held in the
Mansion House on 14 April 1971. Over 1,000 women attended the meeting which
lasted over three hours. Following this meeting a number of groups and subcommittees were formed. In May, 47 members travelled by train to Belfast where
they purchased condoms and other contraceptives and brought them back to Dublin
amid maximum publicity. In an attempt to focus international media attention on the
ban on the importation of contraceptives, the women hoped to stage a confrontation
with customs officials at Connolly station. The by-passing of conventional methods of
agitation by radicals within the movement alarmed many moderates but the
demonstrations continued apace. Women picketed Leinster House and broke into the
Senate during the reading of Mary Robinson’s contraceptive bill chanting ‘we shall
not conceive.’ Right from the outset the non-hierarchical style adopted by the
movement made effective co-ordination difficult. Moreover, ideological disputes
between ‘pure’ feminists and socialist women who advocated tackling the underlying
causes of deprivation undermined the organisation’s cohesiveness still further.
Gradually the IWLM fragmented. There has been no subsequent mass women’s
movement in Ireland.
______________
40
Key Characters
Thekla Beere (1901-91)
Civil Servant, first chair of the Commission on the Status of Women. Born in County
Westmeath, the daughter of the Reverend Francis Armstrong Beere, Thekla was
initially educated at home. She attended Alexandra school and college in Dublin and
later studied legal and political science at Trinity College. She was the only woman in
the university’s law school. She graduated in 1923 with a degree of Bachelor of Laws.
Although a Protestant, she embarked upon a career in the civil service of the newly
independent Free State. She served as a senior officer in the statistics branch before
becoming the first woman to be appointed secretary of an Irish government
department (Transport and Power, 1959-66). She resigned from the civil service in
1966 but was appointed in March 1970 chair of the Commission on the Status of
Women. Beere supervised the publication of the highly praised report of the
Commission in May 1973. It was immediately seen a major step forward in
dismantling the barriers restricting the advancement of Irish women in public life. The
Commission’s report included recommendations in eight specific areas: employment;
social welfare; taxation; the law; politics and public life; education and cultural
affairs; women and household management, family planning and marriage
counselling. Beere was appointed governor of the Irish Times trust in 1974 and was
subsequently governor of the Rotunda Hospital. She died in February 1991.
Desmond Fennell (b. 1929)
Born in Belfast and educated at University College, Dublin. Fennell lectured in
Political Science and European History at University College, Galway and at the
Dublin Institute of Technology. He is the author of numerous works including The
British problem: a radical analysis of the present British troubles and possible ways
of ending them (Dublin, 1963); The state of the nation, Ireland since the 1960s
(Swords, 1983); Heresy: the battle of ideas in modern Ireland (Belfast, 1993). He is
fluent in several languages and has earned a reputation as a fierce critic of modernism
and the liberal state and any deviation from nationalist orthodoxy. He now works as a
freelance writer and critic.
Hilda Tweedy (b.1911)
Feminist and consumer affairs campaigner. Born Hilda Anderson in Clones, County
Monaghan, the daughter of a Church of Ireland cleric, she was educated at Alexandra
school, Dublin. Following her education she moved to Egypt where her father had
taken up a church appointment. She studied mathematics at the University of London
before returning to Ireland in 1936. She applied for a number of teaching positions but
was refused on account of her married status. In 1941, along with a number of other
middle-class women from a predominately Protestant background, she initiated a
‘housewives petition’ which sought a fair and efficient provision of food and other
scarce commodities. Tweedy was a founder member of the Irish Housewives
Association and served as joint secretary, 1941-52, and chairwomen, 1959-62. She
represented the IHA in Paris at meetings of the Women’s Committee of the French
European Movement. She gave also public support to Noel Browne’s controversial
Mother and child scheme. At the congress of the International Alliance of Women
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held in Dublin in 1961 she was elected to the governing board of the organisation,
1961-64, and 1973-89. She was chairwoman of the ad hoc Committee on the Status of
Women set up in 1968 to campaign for a national commission and eventually
represented the IHA on the National Commission on the Status of Woman, 1969-72.
She was the first chairwoman of the Council for the Status of Women, established in
1973 to implement the groundbreaking report. In 1990 Trinity College, Dublin
awarded her an honorary doctorate of laws.
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Conclusion
Women’s participation in public political life followed a fairly general pattern in
post-independence Ireland. Politics remained overwhelmingly a male preserve. It was
not until 1969, over fifty years after women had been given the vote, that the number
of women candidates in Dáil elections reached double figures. Political exclusion was
reinforced by economic and legal discrimination. The Conditions of Employment Act
(1935) granted the government powers to obstruct women from working in certain
industries. Women were effectively banned from sitting on jury panels. In the
constitution of 1937 the state disavowed any intention of undermining women’s
domestic role. In these culturally repressive years, the Irish women’s movement was
kept alive by the activities of a small number of organisations containing women from
a predominately middle-class, professional and Protestant background. Nonetheless,
issues of explicit interest to women were not placed on the political agenda in any
visible way until the late 1960s. However, the dramatic changes in Irish society
brought about by the economic boom of the 1960s were to have a profound impact
upon women and the women’s movement. By this time younger women, many from a
socialist and working-class milieu, were beginning to challenge different analyses of
women’s oppression and alternative responses to it. Taking their cue from the
international women’s movement, Irish feminists demanded equal rights and brought
sex-related issues into sharp focus. The highly publicised exploits of feminists in the
early 1970s allowed longer-established women’s organisations to put many of the
most important recommendations of the government-appointed Commission on the
Status of Women into effect. The early 1970s marked a vital new beginning as
women’s issues assumed a prominent place on the political agenda for the very first
time.
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