St Patrick and the Patriarchy: Women’s rights in Ireland

We Are History

Angela Barnes and John O'Farrell

History

4.9 • 802 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell present the not-so-serious podcast unravelling fascinating and down-right bizarre historical events. New Episode! For much of the 20th century the Catholic establishment had a stranglehold over Ireland’s morality and used it to deny Irish women basic rights such as contraception, divorce and abortion. When a series of scandals stripped away the hypocrisy of the church, the women of the country took their chance to stand up against the patriarchy and were finally able to win basic human rights – and even win the presidency. This is a real-life story of hope, sacrifice and the power of Irish women. Get all episodes a week early and ad-free – when you support We Are History on Patreon: https://patreon.com/WeAreHistory “Ireland wasn’t oppressed by the Catholic church with nuns wielding batons and water canons…the only torture was the really long sermons.” – Angela Barnes “When the Church tells you what you have to do, it always ends well.” – John O’Farrell “John explains feminism to me, part 723!” – Angela Barnes “Erm, so if I could just talk over you, about this feminism…” – John O’Farrell Reading list: We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole. Ireland – the autobiography. A collection of essays and articles edited by John Bowman We Are History is written and presented by Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell. Audio production by Simon Williams and artwork by James Parrett. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor is Andrew Harrison. We Are History is a Podmasters Production. https://twitter.com/wearehistorypod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another edition of We Are History, the only history podcast where one of the presenters actually remembers most of what they are retelling.
0:12.2	Thank you, Angela. Yes. In fact, I do remember. That's because Johnny's old. That's what I'm saying there, just to be clear. I do. I do remember the events of this week's edition.
0:20.7	Ah, so do I.
0:21.9	Because we are doing some late 20th and even 21st century history in the land of my forefathers, my spiritual home.
0:30.8	Well, maidenhead.
0:31.9	No, it's just where we moved after the famine.
0:34.6	About 120 years after the famine, to be fair.
0:37.4	Today's episode is about
0:39.0	the rights of women in modern Ireland and how the stranglehold that the Catholic Church
0:44.4	had over all supposedly moral issues, how that society denied women access to the pill,
0:50.3	denied them divorce, the right to abortion, and even the right to work after they were married
0:55.2	for many public sector and bank workers, etc. So women teachers, no problem, but married and teaching.
1:02.5	Oh my God, what a scandal. You should be in the home making your husband's tea.
1:06.9	Strange way of thinking. It should be said, though, that this attitude wasn't limited to just the Catholics, by the way.
1:12.7	When Reverend Ian Paisley, loud his voice in the North for unionism and the Protestant church,
1:17.9	when he was asked a difficult question by a female journalist, he boomed.
1:21.0	And I really should be able to do the accent.
1:23.8	But he boomed, you should be at home cooking your husband's dinner.
1:27.5	You should be at home cooking your husband's dinner. You should be at home, cooking your husband's dinner.
1:30.6	Dinner, dinner.
1:31.8	You should be at home.
1:33.3	Anyway, you get the idea.
	...

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