Madam, – In order to appreciate fully women’s rights within the EU, it is of interest to consider the situation regarding women in Ireland in the 1970s. I quote from Irish Women into Focus – the development of women’s rights in Ireland in the 1970s, by the then Minister of State for Women’s Affairs, Nuala Fennell with recognition of journalist Mavis Arnold: “It was the desperate plight of women in the home which attracted most attention in the early days of the Irish Women’s Movement in the 1970s.
“Legally she was unprotected. She had no rights over family property and her work within the household counted for nothing in financial terms. Unless that home was under joint ownership, it could be sold without the wife’s knowledge or consent and she and her children would be left homeless. She was denied dental and optical benefits. If she was deserted, she would not be entitled to State support. She could not join a library or undertake hire purchase without her husband’s guarantee.”
At last, in the mid-1970s, progress began to be made. One of the first organisations to improve the lifestyle of rural women in particular was the Irish Countrywomen’s Association which campaigned to install electricity into their homes.
During the second World War and later, my mother (a widow) had to chop up damp turf with a hatchet in her kitchen in order to fuel a most inefficient stove which first dried the turf before slowly boiling a kettle, heating water or warming the heater inserted into the iron – one or the other.
In these recessionary times, it is no harm recalling how, within living memory, people were challenged. – Yours, etc,