Feminism in Ireland

Feminism in Ireland has played a major role in shaping the legal and social position of women in present-day Ireland. The role of women has been influenced by numerous legal changes in the second part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s.

From 1918, with the rest of the United Kingdom, women in Ireland could vote at age 30 with property qualifications or in university constituencies, while men could vote at age 21 with no qualification. From separation in 1922, the Irish Free State gave equal voting rights to men and women. Promises of equal rights from the Proclamation were embraced in the Constitution in 1922, the year Irish women achieved full voting rights. However over the next ten years laws were introduced that eliminated women's rights from serving on juries, working after marriage, and working in industry. The 1937 Constitution and Prime Minister Eamon De Valera’s conservative leadership further stripped women of their previously granted rights.

Women participated actively in the Easter Rising of 1916. Approximate 260 women took part in the insurrection, although until recently they were not mentioned in history books. In advance of the 2016 commemoration of the Rising, several historians have researched and worked to correct the omissions. A government-funded project allowed Mary McAuliffe and Liz Gillis to document the stories of 77 women who were jailed for participating in the uprising. They were typically activists who had fought for social justice and equality in a variety of ways: land reform, labor organizing and women’s suffrage. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, a voting rights activist, told audiences during a speaking tour in 1917 that "it is the only instance I know of in history when men fighting for freedom voluntarily included women."

A major shift after the execution of rebel leaders in 1916 was that the Roman Catholic church finally backed the cause for independence. The church was the most powerful institution in the country and exercised its power to shape the constitution. The first Free State government supported a pluralist state, but Eamon de Valera, who was not a supporter of women's emancipation, together with the church, enshrined Catholic and socially conservative teachings. Contraception and divorce were illegal, and various laws were instituted to keep women at home and out of the workplace.

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