Legalising contraception in Ireland
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Contraception wasn't easily accessible in Ireland until 1985. Activists spent years fighting for the right to control their fertility but faced opposition from the Roman Catholic church which traditionally played a central role in Irish society. Paul Moss has been hearing from Betty Purcell who was a teenager when she first started campaigning.
Photo: a woman holding up a condom and some contraceptive pills. Credit: Getty Images.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Paul Moss and today |
| 0:46.8 | we'll be hearing from Ireland and a political campaign which took on the power of the Catholic |
| 0:51.2 | Church and some would say altered the country forever. |
| 0:55.0 | Ever since independence from Britain in 1922, the Catholic Church and its teachings had held sway |
| 1:00.8 | in Ireland exerting huge influence on politics and on day-to-day life. |
| 1:05.7 | And that meant a ban on contraceptives, a ban that wasn't fully lifted until 1985. |
| 1:12.0 | I've been hearing from one of the women who helped to make that happen. |
| 1:17.0 | It began in 1971 when a group of Irish campaigners travelled to Belfast in the north of Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. |
| 1:27.0 | There they bought a whole variety of contraceptives, including condoms and the pill, |
| 1:32.0 | and then defiantly returned to the Irish |
| 1:35.1 | capital Dublin daring police to arrest them or seize the contraband they were |
| 1:39.8 | carrying. |
| 1:40.8 | No you're not getting it. I refuse to give it to you. |
| 1:44.0 | Watching this protest on television that night was a 15 year old Dublin schoolgirl Betty Purcell. |
| 1:50.0 | I could not believe it. |
| 1:52.0 | And I just thought, wow, that's the way to speak to authority. |
| 1:56.1 | It was just such an inspiring moment as a you know a young person to see these women just |
... |
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