St Patrick and the Patriarchy: Women’s rights in Ireland

Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell present the not-so-serious podcast unravelling fascinating and down-right bizarre historical events.

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For much of the 20th century the Catholic establishment had a stranglehold over Ireland’s morality and used it to deny Irish women basic rights such as contraception, divorce and abortion. When a series of scandals stripped away the hypocrisy of the church, the women of the country took their chance to stand up against the patriarchy and were finally able to win basic human rights – and even win the presidency.

This is a real-life story of hope, sacrifice and the power of Irish women.

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• “Ireland wasn’t oppressed by the Catholic church with nuns wielding batons and water canons…the only torture was the really long sermons.” – Angela Barnes
• “When the Church tells you what you have to do, it always ends well.” – John O’Farrell
• “John explains feminism to me, part 723!” – Angela Barnes
• “Erm, so if I could just talk over you, about this feminism…” – John O’Farrell

Reading list:

We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole.

Ireland – the autobiography. A collection of essays and articles edited by John Bowman

We Are History is written and presented by Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell. Audio production by Simon Williams and artwork by James Parrett. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor is Andrew Harrison. We Are History is a Podmasters Production.

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