Irish Women And Sexual Morality

The power of the Catholic Church in Ireland is omnipresent : beyond its interference in public areas like politics and education, the church plays a great role in Irish people's life. Women, as an elementary part of the typical Irish family, have a peculiar perception of this influence : even after the recent abolition of the laws forbidding divorce and contraceptives, Irish women can still consider the Catholic Church as a source of oppression for them. More than ever, with the abortion issue still unsolved, women's movements in Ireland want to fight against the mastery of the Catholic Church over their existence.

The research for this book was prompted by a combination of events, in particular the election of Mary Robinson to the Presidency and the X Case which rocked Irish society. The book is an exploration of the dynamics between the courts, the legislators and the Irish citizens in relation to certain socio-sexual questions: divorce, contraception, abortion, and homosexuality. Spanning 73 years since the creation of the Irish State, The Politics of Sexual Morality in Ireland questions the nature of the moral order regulating Irish society and the concept of democracy underlying it. It examines the fragile balance struck between tradition and modernity.

The central objective of this study is an examination of discourses of Irish female sexuality and of the apparatuses of control designed for its surveillance and regulation in the period nineteen-twenty to nineteen-forty. It is argued that during this period sexuality, and in particular female sexuality, became established as an icon of national identity. This thesis demonstrated that this identity was given symbolic embodiment in the discursive construction of an idealised, feminine subject, a subject who had purity and sexual morality as her defining characteristics. It is argued that female roles and in particular female sexuality, emerged as contested issues in post-colonial Ireland. This is not unusual given that women are frequently constructed in nationalist discourses as repositories of cultural heritage and symbols of national identity (Kandiyoti 1993). This thesis demonstrates that the Catholic Church played a central role in this process of establishing female sexuality as a national icon. Furthermore, it illustrates that through a process of identification and classification, women, whose behaviour contested the prescribed sexual norm, were categorized and labeled as 'wayward girls' 'unmarried mothers' or 'prostitutes'and mechanisms for their control were set in place. Finally, this thesis reveals that the development of these control apparatuses was mediated by class, with the sexuality of working class women being a primary target of surveillance, regulation and indeed reformation.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2-, language: English, abstract: First of all, and before we proceed with the actual description and basic layout of the term paper, it would be quite interesting to cite an extract from a letter that James Joyce himself wrote to his lover and partner Nora Barnacle. "How could I like the idea of home? ... My mother was slowly killed, I think, by my father's ill-treatment, by years of trouble, and by my cynical frankness of conduct. When I looked on her face as she lay in the coffin - a face grey and wasted with cancer- I understood that I was looking on the face of a victim and I cursed the system which had made her a victim." (Letters, II, 48) 1 This quotation roused my interest and became my first motivation concerning the study of gender roles and sexual morality in ' Dubliners', as it summarizes the cruel reality of the position of women at that period of time. In addition to that, it provides us with a general impression of what the situation in Dublin might have been, focusing on the rather inharmonic relations between the two sexes.This small study and description of the gender roles in 'Dubliners' is organized in two main parts. As Joyce's intention was "to write a chapter of the moral history of my [his] country" (D, xxxi), it is essential that the first part provides us with the general historical background of that age. The historical part may conveniently be divided into two sections. The first concerns the roles of both sexes in the Victorian era, whereas the second section brings us closer to the reality of men and women in Ireland, and to be more specific in Dublin. This second section is of great importance, because as already implied by the last quotation, this collection of fifteen short- stories, published in 1914, are expected to mirror the reality of the society of Dublin of that time, and to be more specific, this is done in a very repre

Provides a clear, easily read, analysis of the issues involved in teaching young people about sexuality. It describes the deep divisions that exist in the way Irish people see, understand and relate to sex.

In this entertaining and illuminating book, Aongus Collins surveys changing attitudes to sexual and moral issues in Ireland from the earliest times, including the Brehon Laws, to the present day and the sex scandals that have rocked the Church.

"... a dramatic overview of the changing life-styles and values of women in the Republic of Ireland." --Choice "Beale's study is engaging, informative and thought provoking." --Women's Studies International Forum "... an intriguing look at women determined to participate in the struggle for the long haul, women who could easily have thrown up their hands in despair, and backed away from an all-too-powerful Catholic heirarchy. That they have not done this is inspiring, and reinforces the truism that "sisterhood is global." --Belles Lettres Beale's analysis shows that although Ireland is still a deeply conservative society with respect to sexual morality and the ideology of the family, it also has a lively women's movement, which has won significant improvements for women.

Impure thoughts is the first study of the twentieth-century Irish Catholic Bildungsroman. This comparative examination of six Irish novelists tracks the historical evolution of a literary genre and its significant role in Irish culture. With chapters on James Joyce and Kate O’Brien, along with studies of Maura Laverty, Patrick Kavanagh, Edna O’Brien and John McGahern, this book offers a fresh new approach to the study of twentieth-century Irish writing and of the twentieth-century novel. Combining the study of literature and of archival material, Impure thoughts also develops a new interpretive framework for studying the history of sexuality in twentieth-century Ireland. Addressing itself to a wide set of interdisciplinary questions about Irish sexuality, modernity and post-colonial development, as well as Irish literature, it will be of interest to students and scholars in various disciplines, including literary studies, history, sociology and gender studies.

The history of sexual morality in Ireland has been traditionally associated with repression. In the last two decades, however, repression seems to have given way to its exact opposite. But where did this “repression” originate? And how can we account for this sudden and sweeping transformation in sexual mores? Based on solid ethnographic and historical analysis of sexual morality in rural Ireland, augmented by comparative data from Papua New Guinea, and being informed by from Freud’s emblematic concept of repression, the author draws new conclusions that not only apply to the specific case of his Irish material but shed new light on the specific nature of an anthropological approach to the study of human societies.

Ferriter covers such subjects as abortion, pregnancy, celibacy, contraception, censorship, infanticide, homosexuality, prostitution, marriage, popular culture, social life and the various hidden Irelands associated with sexual abuse - all in the context of a conservative official morality backed by the Catholic Church and by legislation. The book energetically and originally engages with subjects omitted from the mainstream historical narrative. The breadth of this book and the richness of the source material uncovered make it definitive in its field and a most remarkable work of social history.