Irish Women's Liberation Movement

The Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM) was an alliance of a group of Irish women who were concerned about the sexism within Ireland both socially and legally. They first began after a meeting in Dublin's Bewley's Cafe on Grafton Street in 1970. The group was short-lived, but influential.

In the 1970s in Ireland, women were denied certain rights based on their gender. Marital rape was not a crime. Women could not keep their jobs for public service or for banks if they got married, collect children's allowance, choose her own official place of domicile and were normally not paid the same wages for the same work as men. Women could also not buy contraceptives.Divorce was illegal and "single mothers, widows and deserted wives faced dire poverty." Women were not required to serve on juries and instead had to opt into jury service, meaning that very few women served on juries in practice.

There were other women-focused groups in Ireland at the time, such as the Irish Housewives' Association and the Irish Countrywomen's Association which worked for change in a more patient, "behind the scenes" way. The members of the IWLM did not seek change through patience, but rather as "activists and lobbyists."

The Irish Women's Liberation Movement had their meetings in Gaj's restaurant on Baggot Street every Monday. Gaj's restaurant was owned by Margaret Gaj who was a feminist socialist activist. It was initially started with twelve women, most of whom were journalists.

The IWLM was democratically organized, with members voting on various projects and protests as a group each month. Local groups of IWLM sent two representatives each to the meetings. Overall, the meetings were often very disorganized and noisy, but also, the meetings allowed women to express ideas they'd not been able to give voice to before.

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