This topic examines how the legal, social, educational, and working lives of Irish women changed across the twentieth century. In the exam, you need to explain specific changes and continuities across areas like politics, work, schooling, and family life.
Voting Rights and Politics
At the start of the 1900s, Irish women had no parliamentary vote. By the end of the century, women held Ireland's highest offices.
- Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington co-founded the Irish Women's Franchise League in 1908 to win the vote using militant tactics.
- Cumann na mBan formed in 1914, with members serving as couriers, nurses, and fighters in the 1916 Rising.
- Constance Markievicz was elected to Westminster in 1918 and became Minister for Labour in the First Dáil in 1919.
- The 1922 Free State Constitution gave all Irish men and women aged twenty-one the right to vote.
- Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was appointed to Cabinet in 1979, the first female minister since 1919.
- Mary Robinson became Ireland's first female President in 1990, followed by Mary McAleese in 1997.
Education
Access to second-level and university education changed from an elite privilege into a standard path for girls.
- Trinity College Dublin admitted women in 1904, and the National University of Ireland opened fully to women in 1908.
- Early in the century, women made up just ten percent of university students.
- Before 1967, secondary school fees meant most working-class and rural girls left school after primary level.
- Free secondary education in 1967 allowed thousands of girls to complete school and sit State exams.
- Higher educational qualifications let women enter professional jobs like medicine, law, engineering, and civil service administration.
Employment and Work Outside the Home
The Irish state placed strict limits on women working, but activist campaigns and European laws forced reform after 1970.
- The marriage bar forced female civil servants (from 1932) and primary teachers (from 1933) to resign on marriage.
- The Conditions of Employment Act 1936 let ministers restrict women working in specific industries.
- By 1946, only 2.5 percent of married Irish women had jobs outside the home.
- The Irish Women's Liberation Movement, founded in 1970, campaigned against unequal pay and workplace bans.
- Ireland joined the EEC in 1973, requiring the government to scrap the marriage bar in the civil service.
- The Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act 1974 banned lower pay for women doing the same work as men.
- The Employment Equality Act 1977 outlawed sex discrimination in hiring, training, and promotion.
Life in the Home and Leisure
Daily life in the home shifted with technology, legal reform, and new opportunities in sport and culture.
Home and Family
- Article 41 of the 1937 Constitution placed women's primary social role inside the home.
- Rural electrification after 1946 brought electric stoves and washing machines, cutting hours of heavy manual domestic work.
- The Succession Act 1965 gave widows a guaranteed legal share of a deceased husband's estate.
- About 11,000 women, including unmarried mothers, were confined in Magdalene Laundries between 1922 and 1996 to do unpaid work.
- Contraception was legalised on prescription in 1979, and divorce was introduced in 1996 after a national referendum.
Sport and Leisure
- The Camogie Association was founded in 1904, giving women a nationwide competitive team sport.
- The Ladies Gaelic Football Association formed in 1974 to organise competitive football for women.
- Sonia O'Sullivan won world championship gold in 1995 and an Olympic silver medal in 2000, increasing public interest in women's athletics.
Key terms
- Suffrage
- The legal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections.
- Irish Women's Franchise League (IWFL)
- A militant suffrage organisation founded in 1908 by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins.
- Marriage bar
- A rule requiring female public servants and teachers to resign their jobs upon marriage.
- Article 41
- The clause in the 1937 Constitution recognising a woman's life and work within the home.
- Magdalene Laundries
- Religious-run institutions where unmarried mothers and non-conforming women were confined to do unpaid laundry work.
- Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM)
- A feminist group formed in 1970 to fight for equal rights and reproductive freedom.
- Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act 1974
- An Irish law that made it illegal to pay women less than men for identical work.
- Employment Equality Act 1977
- A law banning discrimination based on sex or marital status in recruitment, training, and promotion.
Check yourself
What protest did the Irish Women's Liberation Movement organise in 1971 against contraception bans?
The Contraceptive Train — activists travelled from Dublin to Belfast and brought banned contraceptives back with them.
In what year was the marriage bar in the Irish civil service abolished?
1973, when Ireland joined the EEC.
What major education reform in 1967 helped thousands more girls attend secondary school?
The introduction of free secondary education and transport.
Which Irish athlete won world championship gold in 1995 and Olympic silver in 2000?
Sonia O'Sullivan.
Which 1965 act gave widows a legal right to a share of their late husband's estate?
The Succession Act 1965.