Mary ‘May’ McGee sits on an armchair in the livingroom of her home in Skerries, along Co Dublin’s north coast. She is in the middle of a knitting project, bags brimming with pastel shades of wool tucked around her feet.
Behind her are framed photographs of her late husband Seamus, who died last year.
More than 50 years ago, the couple took a landmark Supreme Court case leading to the overturning of the 1935 law banning contraception. It was the start of a social revolution in Ireland – and one that caused moral uproar at the time.
“We were condemned from the altar. They said, ‘Certain people in this parish have brought the church into disrepute’. So we all got up and walked out. I never went back again,” the 81-year-old says.
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McGee was 27 and a mother of four, including twins, when she approached a solicitor in 1972 to raise concerns about a banned contraceptive.
“We had four children in the space of 23 months,” she says, shaking her head.
Having suffered severe medical complications during all three pregnancies, McGee’s doctor warned her that another could prove fatal.
To her frustration, on attempting to import a spermicidal jelly the item was seized by Customs. McGee was told she could face prosecution if she tried to order it again. After seeking advice from the late Dr Jim Loughran, her local GP in Skerries, she ultimately decided on legal action and won. Dr Loughran died in 2023.
On Saturday, a mosaic dedicated to McGee is to be unveiled in Floraville park by Skerries Tidy Towns. The mosaic stands in the shadow of St Patrick’s Church – a poignant reminder of McGee’s fight for bodily autonomy at a time when church and state were deeply interlinked.
The creation by artist Helen McLean, who often takes on liturgical projects, depicts a mermaid. Admiring the mosaic – a shimmering sea of blues and greens with flowing golden locks curling protectively around the mermaid’s womb – McGee reflects on the church’s chokehold on reproductive rights.
“The chemists were afraid to do the prescriptions. That’s how much the church had everything.”
Despite feeling ostracised by the parish priest, McGee says the couple faced minimal backlash. Friends and family were supportive of the couple’s decision to appeal after the High Court initially ruled against them.
“We were so lucky with the people we had. People who cared about what they did and that made a big difference. We were at a time I think when people were ready for change,” she says.
“When the first case was thrown out, I thought he didn’t even look at the papers properly. And that annoyed me because a lot of work goes into it. So I said I want to go further. I couldn’t back down.”
From there, the case known as McGee v Attorney General went to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the State, where four out of five judges ruled in favour of the appeal.
“I did make it known that if we didn’t win it here I would go to Strasbourg, to the European Court of Human Rights, so maybe that made them decide to pull their trousers up,” McGee says, laughing now.
“It was a case of wanting to do our own thing, whereas before that we were like puppets. What would the church know about family planning? They don’t get into bed with us, do they.”
Growing up under tight surveillance and scrutiny by the Catholic church, “they were controlling everything”, McGee says. “It was awful years ago.”
“Lent. Forty days and 40 nights. Brimstone, fires of hell and the whole lot. It was a hard time because people were afraid. Mum was terrified of the church.”
This fear led McGee’s mother to express concern for her four young grandchildren at the time her daughter took on the case. While supportive of her daughter’s decision, she “was worried about the children, that there might be backlash”.
Attitudes were so conservative at the time that McGee remembers her husband Seamus being cross-examined in court by a barrister who asked whether the couple “would not consider living as brother and sister”.
“I looked at him, he looked at me. It was ridiculous,” she says.
“He always said that he would want me alive than be going up to my grave every week.”
Since then, much has changed surrounding reproductive rights in Ireland. With the repeal of the Eighth Amendment during the referendum in May 2018, the near-total ban on abortion in the State ended.
More recently, the Free Contraception Scheme allows women aged 17-35 to access contraception with ease. “That’s great. To think you had all that fuss years ago,” McGee says of the change.
This stands in stark contrast to her own experience, when effective family planning felt like a distant dream.
“We all want to plan our families. We want to be able to space them. If we want them, that’s okay, but if we don’t want them that’s our business.”
McGee notes that while having children can come at a physical and mental cost to women, the financial burden on families was and remains a concern.
“Even when we were young the kids were starting to get expensive – to dress them, feed them.
“Don’t have a child unless you really want one. It’s not fair. Because it has to be hard when a child is brought up and people don’t have time for it ... You have to be able to afford it and today it’s hard to even get a house.”
The McGees got married in 1968, and their first child Martin was born the same year, six weeks early.
In 1974, using money from an interview about their case the couple were finally able to put down a deposit of IR£750 on the house McGee still lives in today.
The family home is filled with memories of Seamus, who died from a heart attack in January 2024.
“My husband was my greatest support. He was a quiet man. My God, he didn’t say much, but he was always there. He never ever said, ‘No, you shouldn’t do it’.”
An old Skerries Hockey Club jersey is framed alongside photographs and newspaper cutouts from his sporting days.
McGee points out a sailing photo, from a championship in Sligo in 2005.
“My husband was steering the boat at the back. They came 85th out of 2,000 boats,” she says.
“He was in his 60s, not bad for an old lad. He loved sailing and he loved boats. He was very passionate about sport.
“I think when you have a good partner it makes all the difference in the world. He nursed me back to health many times when I was sick after the babies. For a man with big hands, he was very gentle.”
The couple went on to have two more children.
Reflecting on how far women’s rights have come, McGee has a message for the younger generation: “Whenever you get a chance to vote – use it. A lot went into being able to vote. I don’t think the young people today have a clue what really happened years ago.”
We were seen but not heard. Now we’re able to speak up
A subscriber to The People’s Friend, the world’s oldest women’s weekly magazine, McGee says she takes pleasure in reading stories written by women.
“Women didn’t always have it easy,” she says. “The suffragettes, they put up with an awful lot. I admire them. They got some awful treatment, but they persevered.
“We’re definitely a stronger breed. That’s how we’re still here.”
McGee remembers the marriage bar, which required women working in the public sector, and some private companies, to resign from their positions once married. It was lifted in 1973, the same year she won her contraception case.
Balancing the responsibilities of domestic life was no mean feat, she says. “You have a home, you have a family. You have to have them, care for them, and keep him happy.
“We were seen but not heard. Now we’re able to speak up.”
After winning her case, the McGees went on with life as usual. Although modest about her own contribution, McGee’s decision to challenge the State changed the course of Irish social history, paving the way for years to come.
The Supreme Court’s ruling that the 1935 law banning importation and sale of contraceptives was unconstitutional marked a turning point in the fight for reproductive rights in an Ireland that is now, as McGee says, “hardly recognisable”.
Formal recognition of the McGees’ contribution came on the 50th anniversary of their win in 2023, with Supreme Court judge Mr Justice Gerard Hogan describing it as the court’s “single most important decision, in terms of its political and social consequences” in its near 100-year history. A TG4 documentary exploring the case was broadcast that year.
