"You do have to ask whether in the end, Ireland became no country for women."
A documentary about Irish women and their experiences with the State, which has been described as "landmark", is airing on RTÉ this Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Created by Anne Roper, No Country for Women is a two-part documentary looking at the relationship between women and the Irish State over the past 100 years, from restricting their ability to work to blocking access to fertility control.
Irish women gained the right to vote a century ago back in 1918, and the RTÉ documentary questions why it took so long for one half of the country's voices to be heard.
https://twitter.com/RTEOne/status/1008046548809216000
Stories and participants in episode one, entitled A Woman's Place include:
- Samantha Long - who wants to find out about what life was like for her grandmother and other women confined to ‘mental asylums' beyond the Free State years.
- Catherine Corless - who will talk about Julia Carter Devaney who spent the first 45 years of her life as an unpaid domestic in Tuam's mother and baby home.
- Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.
- Journalist Justine McCarthy.
- Mary Magee - who will touch on the contraception ban of the 1970s
“I was having problems with pregnancies: pre-eclampsia, strokes. I got scared and decided to use contraception," Magee said.
"I couldn't take the pill because of the stroke, so I found out about the coil. But you needed spermicide from England and my order was stopped by customs."
https://twitter.com/RTEOne/status/1008763777943207936
Stories and participants in episode two include:
- Rebecca Roche - who talks about meeting her stepmother at the age of eight; her stepmother was fired from her teaching job in the 1980s for living with a separated man and becoming pregnant.
- Mary Merritt - who was incarcerated for 14 years as an unpaid worker in a religious-run laundry.
- Micheline Sheehy Skeffington - his grandmother, Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, was a feminist and suffragette. She was fired after being arrested protesting for women's vote 100 years ago.
- Phil Walsh - who had to leave her work as County Librarian in the 1970s because of the marriage bar. As a result, today she still gets a lower State pension and wants that changed.
No Country For Women airs on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 June at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.
