Sir, – The ever-insightful Fintan O’Toole (“Ireland was once the Tradwife capital of the world”, Opinion, September 2nd) neglected to adequately highlight the lack of opportunity and choice that women had at that time, as well as the State coercion of educated women and State employees who had to give up work when getting married, with the tacit approval of the Catholic Church and the understanding that their future role was to rear large families of good Catholics.
My mother, being an example (and a contemporary of Edna O’Brien in secondary school in Loughrea), had a well-paid job with the Department of Agriculture when she married my hard-working, progressive, forward-thinking father, who did not own the house he lived in or the land he farmed and had little or no income. The scandal was not only the loss of income but also her lost opportunity for career advancement and life satisfaction and achievements.
If she had been allowed to continue in her employment, how much different and easier all our lives would have been. However, with her knowledge and industry my parents raised and educated seven children despite the State and Church trying to stop them from rising above their station.
Both were non-drinking “pioneers” and the only alcohol in the house was a small bottle of whiskey and sherry decanted in the “parlour” for Christmas guests or summer visitors from overseas.
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Her enduring legacy to her children was the equality of opportunity afforded both to my brothers and sisters, who benefited as a result of her own insight, sacrifices and her objection to the denial of opportunities for women, a policy that was eventually abandoned in the 1970s.
She used her soft power to start an Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) guild – a much-underestimated agent for change in rural Ireland – in her parish that was invaluable in allowing newly married and isolated women to gather, socialise, integrate and pursue education opportunities away from members of the controlling patriarchy. – Yours, etc,
TOMÁS FINN,
Cappataggle,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.
