Abstract
The twentieth-century history of men and women's attempts to gain access to reproductive health services in the Republic of Ireland has been significantly shaped by Ireland's social and religious context. Although contraception was illegal in Ireland from 1935 to 1979, declining family sizes in this period suggest that many Irish men and women were practising fertility control measures. From the mid-1960s, the contraceptive pill was marketed in Ireland as a 'cycle regulator'. In order to obtain a prescription for the pill, Irish women would therefore complain to their doctors that they had heavy periods or irregular cycles. However, doing so could mean going against one's faith, and also depended on finding a sympathetic doctor. The contraceptive pill was heavily prescribed in Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s as it was the only contraceptive available legally, albeit prescribed through 'coded language'. The pill was critiqued by men and women on both sides of the debate over the legalisation of contraception. Anti-contraception activists argued that the contraceptive pill was an abortifacient, while both anti-contraception activists and feminist campaigners alike drew attention to its perceived health risks. As well as outlining these discussions, the paper also illustrates the importance of medical authority in the era prior to legalisation, and the significance of doctors' voices in relation to debates around the contraceptive pill. However, in spite of medical authority, it is clear that Irish women exercised significant agency in gaining access to the pill.
Highlights
In a book entitled Marriage Irish Style, published in 1969, journalist Dorine Rohan interviewed married Irish men and women about their lives
Contraception was illegal in Ireland from 1935 to 1979, declining family sizes in this period suggest that many Irish men and women were practising fertility control measures
By 1974, this had increased to 66% in the Synge Street branch, and 48% in Mountjoy Square, increasing to 68.25% for Synge Street in 1976 and 59.16% for Mountjoy Square in 1976.41 Contemporary newspaper accounts suggest that the contraceptive pill was being readily prescribed by general practitioners in Ireland – this often involved doctors making a private agreement with patients
Summary
In a book entitled Marriage Irish Style, published in 1969, journalist Dorine Rohan interviewed married Irish men and women about their lives. One Dublin gynaecologist explained to journalist Mary Maher in March 1968 that ‘more and more general practitioners are prescribing it, and very few doctors would refuse it to any woman who asks for it’.43 Another pharmaceutical company representative stated that he believed that 25% of Irish women taking the pill were using it for ‘medical reasons’, and 75% for ‘social reasons’, with the firm’s spokesperson joking ‘Either that or there’s a great increase in menstrual difficulties’.44. In another article in Woman’s Way magazine in 1968, which described the experiences of women and family planning in Ireland, McEnroy interviewed a woman called Mrs Kearney, the mother of three children, who had been refused the contraceptive pill by. ‘Layman’, the author of a letter to the Irish Times in 1966, described himself as a ‘member of a voluntary lay charitable organisation working mainly in the poorer areas of the city’ and outlined four problems he had encountered in the last six months, including: a ‘a woman expecting her eighth child
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