The battle for legal contraception challenged key tenets of Irish identity: Catholicism, large families, traditional gender roles, and sexual puritanism. It is a story of gender, religion, social change, and failing efforts to reaffirm Irish moral exceptionalism.

The Irish battle for legal contraception was a contest over Irish exceptionalism: the belief that Ireland could resist global trends despite the impact of second-wave feminism, falling fertility, and a growing number of women travelling for abortion. It became so lengthy and so divisive because it challenged key tenets of Irish identity: Catholicism, large families, traditional gender roles, and sexual puritanism. The Catholic Church argued that legalising contraception would destroy this way of life, and many citizens agreed. The Battle to Control Female Fertility in Modern Ireland provides new insights on Irish masculinity and fertility control. It highlights women's activism in both liberal and conservative camps, and the consensus between the Catholic and Protestant churches views on contraception for single people. It also shows how contraception and the Pro-Life Amendment campaign affected policy towards Northern Ireland, and it examines the role of health professionals, showing how hospital governance prevented female sterilisation. It is a story of gender, religion, social change, and failing efforts to reaffirm Irish moral exceptionalism.

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, consolidation and development of the Irish women's movement, as a social movement, in the course of the twentieth century. It seek to address several lacunae in Irish studies by illuminating the processes through which the movement and, in particular, networks of constituent organisations, came to fruition as agencies of social change. The central argument advanced is that when viewed historically, the Irish women's movement is characterised by its interconnectedness and continuity: the central tensions, themes and organising strategies of the movement connects diverse organisations and constituencies, over time and space. This book will be essential reading for those interested in Irish studies, sociology, history, women's studies, and politics.

There is long-standing debate on how population growth affects national economies. A new report from Population Matters examines the history of this debate and synthesizes current research on the topic. The authors, led by Harvard economist David Bloom, conclude that population age structure, more than size or growth per se, affects economic development, and that reducing high fertility can create opportunities for economic growth if the right kinds of educational, health, and labor-market policies are in place. The report also examines specific regions of the world and how their differing policy environments have affected the relationship between population change and economic development.