Women, the Constitution and the law

From the 1930s to the 1960s, women TDs and Senators continued to be either the widows or relatives of deceased members of the Oireachtas. During the final drafting of Bunreacht na h'Éireann (Irish Constitution) in 1936, there were only three women deputies in the Dáil. There were no women in the Seanad as it had been abolished the same year, 1936.

Irish women's voices went mostly unheard during the debate on the constitution. Of the three women TDs, deputy Margaret Pearse didn't speak and Helena Concannon spoke in favour. The only other woman deputy, Bridget Redmond, attempted unsuccessfully to change the part of Article 41 which said that "woman by her life within the home gives the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved" to include "all women, in or out of the home." She found no support in the Dáil for her proposal on either side of the house, so her idea was dropped.

Deletion of Articles 40, 41 and 45, as demanded by women's organisations was never considered or debated in the Dáil. These arcane articles remain today.

Of the women elected to the Seanad between 1922 and 1937, it was Jenny Wyse-Power, a former Land League activist and executive member of Cumann na mBan, who emerged as the most persistent and determined champion of women's equal rights, and she spoke regularly on social issues such as housing, pensions and the rights of the working classes. In response to the Civil Service Regulation Bill, she complained that "no consultation whatsoever had been made with women workers on the subject of curtailing their rights to employment."

On 29 December 1937, the Irish Free State ratified the Constitution, but had already been placed on a black-list at Geneva for its conduct in relation to women workers – in particular, because of the content of the Civil Service Regulation Bill which restricted women's equal right to work.

Fifty years later, Mary Robinson (right), then a Senator, implored women to recognise that "male domination in the power structures of Irish society does matter. This makes it all the more important for women to develop the skills of effective lobbying so they could bring about change".

Then, in 1988, Robinson wrote a scathing critique of Article 41, maintaining that because it placed women solely in the domestic sphere, "it set serious limits on the role of women in Irish society. No woman had a hand in drafting the Constitution. The vast majority of TDs and Senators have been, and continue to be, male. In recent times, there has been one woman in government which gives a ratio of 1 to 15."

She also highlighted "as Ireland inherited the common law system which had been compiled by male judges, and most of the judges who interpret our Constitution and law are men, this must be challenged by women in a strategic and cohesive way."

It was Mary Robinson, as a barrister, who challenged the Constitution and Irish legislation in the area of family planning and equality for women in employment and social welfare, managing to win most of the important cases she brought before the courts.