You’ll already be well aware that the first part of RTE’s ‘landmark documentary’ No Country For Women aired last night. Even if you didn’t catch it, it’s all people are chatting about today.
The two-part series created by Anne Roper explores Irish women’s lives since achieving the vote 100 years ago.
No Country for Women “travels through time, seeking historical answers in the journeys of a number of Irish women today.”
In 1918, Irish women were allowed vote for the first time but No Country for Women asks the question: “why, in an Ireland that fought so hard for independence, did half the population’s voices so often go unheard? And what is the long-term legacy of a century of government, legal and religious control over women’s lives?”
The reaction to last night’s episode was huge online.
The drawing of all the threads together in #NoCountryforWomen makes me realise what a disservice it is to women when they are separated. Thank you @anneeroper
— Martine Brennan BA DipC DipT (@martinewrites) June 20, 2018
#ConcealedPregnancy https://t.co/uLihPFtsYN #DrSylviaMurphyTighe #NoCountryforWomen
— Martine Brennan BA DipC DipT (@martinewrites) June 20, 2018
I’m not even halfway through the first episode of #NoCountryforWomen and I am just heartbroken for the treatment of women in this country. I’m appalled and saddened at just how recent some of the problems are. I am so glad that I am living in a somewhat better society in Ireland
— Ciara Kerrigan (@ciara_kerrigan_) June 20, 2018
Watching #NoCountryForWomen and it really is hard to fathom how all these “fallen” women were locked up as if they all became pregnant by black magic. As one of the contributors just said; “men wanted to have sex before marriage but wanted to marry virgins”.
— Maïa Dunphy (@MaiaDunphy) June 19, 2018
Superb first part tonight – congrats to @anneeroper Kieran Slyne & all the rest of the team #nocountryforwomen https://t.co/OohL6TuD4U
— Miriam O’Callaghan (@MiriamOCal) June 19, 2018
That was the most powerful and disturbing television. Every Irish person should see it. #NoCountryForWomen #NoCountry
— Siobhán Maguire (@ShivMagST) June 19, 2018
Part one has been so incredibly powerful. Heartbreaking and infuriating. We knew and yet it’s still hard-hitting. This is true public service broadcasting. So proud of @gordonspierin’s work. #NoCountryforWomen
— Louise McSharry (@louisemcsharry) June 19, 2018
Stories and participants in Episode Two airing tonight include:
Rebecca Roche talks about meeting her stepmother at the age of eight who was fired from her teaching job in the 1980s for living with a separated man and becoming pregnant.
Mary Merritt was incarcerated for fourteen years as an unpaid worker a religious-run laundry.
Micheline Sheehy Skeffington’s grandmother, Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, was a feminist and suffragette. She was fired after being arrested protesting for women’s vote 100 years ago.
Phil Walsh had to leave her work as County Librarian in the 1970s because of the marriage bar. As a result, today she still gets a lower State pension and wants that changed.
The second episode of ‘No Country For Women’ airs tonight, Wednesday 20 June, at 21.35 on RTÉ One.
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