Despite newspaper reports that Ireland was once a ‘deeply misogynistic’ society, the word makes only one appearance in the commission’s report. The commission do not use the word directly, instead they quote a feminist historian, Lindsey Earner-Byrne. However, Earner-Byrne’s opinion is not justified in the context of the debate.
On page 45 the report states:
Earner-Byrne states that the Minister for Justice, James Fitzgerald Kenney, who introduced the legislation ‘presented a disturbingly misogynistic approach to welfare’, presenting the unmarried mother as ‘temptress and blackmailer’.
It is clear from the debate that James Fitzgerald Kenney was not labelling all unmarried mothers as Earner-Byrne has described. He was referring to different types of people who might take advantage of the new law as it was then proposed.
The law in question was a philogynistic attempt to help unmarried mothers to get maintenance from the putative father. It required the unmarried mother to go to court and name the father who then would be issued with a court order for maintenance of the child. A debate took place on whether it was better to hold the cases with members of the public present, or with only the press present or completely in-camera.
As would be expected when formulating new laws, various types of scenarios were imagined and thrashed out. One concern was that unscrupulous persons might use the courts to blackmail innocent men, especially if the cases were heard in public or the names of individuals were published in the press. In this scenario, a man could find himself deliberately targeted by a ‘temptress’ whose primary motivation was money. It often happened, in Ireland and abroad, that well-to-do men were often targeted in such a way, and in many cases the child was not even his.
However, the point James Fitzgerald Kenney was articulating was that he believed that when a man was wrongly charged and the case dismissed by the court, the name of his accuser should be published as deterrent against false charges and that a wrongly accused man should have his good name vindicated in public.
The parliamentary record shows that James Fitzgerald Kenney was replying to a question about amending sub-section 6 (a) of the Act, which dealt with the naming of individuals in the case. In the end, the decision was to hold courts with no members of the public present, but press reporters were permitted to attend. Accordingly, the names of the plaintiff, defendant and court officials could appear in public, but they were prevented from publishing details of the proceedings, other than if significant points of law arose.
This acceptance of another person’s opinion without any check for its validity or truthfulness is a problem persistent throughout the commission’s report and has a significant malignant effect on the on many of the report’s conclusions.
Taking the word of academic historians as gospel, also points to significant failings within Irish academic history. Scholars are too frightened of feminist historians to challenge claims, even when they might appear to be totally incorrect.
The assumption of academic inerrancy is a failure of biblical proportions, and the commission’s report is peppered with false assumptions.
You can read the original debate here.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1930-06-11/30/
EJ
Are you actually denying that Ireland was not mysoginistic ? Really? And that the Catholic church supported women, really? Answer me this, when has it ever been safe and ok to be a woman in Ireland? And are you going to deny the Church caused these social stigma’s? Hilarious.
Let’s see:
1) Unmarried women put in Mother and Baby Homes
2) Their “illegitimate” children taken from them, trafficked, starved or neglected while their mothers were abused and denied their rights, fathers of children roamed freely.
3) Abortion law remained illegal, woman sent off to the UK to get the medical attention they need and/ or backalley and unsafe terminations, and the Catholic church still pushed for this to happen right up to 2018. Many deaths, including Savita Hallepavenaar.
4) Cervical check results lost, women died, still women’s checks put off to help with Covid19 outbreak. Why not other checks?
5) Menstrual products still taxed in Ireland as “luxury items”. Still.
6) Contraception illegal in Ireland until 1991.
Afraid of feminists are we? Hilarious.
1) Unmarried women put in Mother and Baby Homes
Reality: Unmarried women had to apply to go into mother and baby homes. Well off women paid to get in.
2) Their “illegitimate” children taken from them, trafficked, starved or neglected while their mothers were abused and denied their rights, fathers of children roamed freely.
Reality: Total fantasy. Dismissed by the commission, and they also admonish journalists for writing false stories.
Realty: Fathers did not get off scot-free. A mother could take the father to court and force him to pay maintenance. For every illegitimate child born in a mother and baby homes three more were born outside one. The grannies who reared their daughters child have been written out of history though feminist misogyny.
3) Abortion law remained illegal, woman sent off to the UK to get the medical attention they need and/ or backalley and unsafe terminations, and the Catholic church still pushed for this to happen right up to 2018. Many deaths, including Savita Hallepavenaar.
Reality: Abortion is not used to cure pregnancy sepsis in the UK.
4) Cervical check results lost, women died, still women’s checks put off to help with Covid19 outbreak. Why not other checks?
Reality: Total moron elected as Minister for Health
5) Menstrual products still taxed in Ireland as “luxury items”. Still.
Reality: Toilet rolls are also taxed as luxury. Double whammy.
6) Contraception illegal in Ireland until 1991.
Reality: Despite that no one ever had a problem getting their hands on a rubber Johnnies. Cocaine is still illegal and yet the country is awash with it!
Afraid of feminists are we? Hilarious.
Reality: Not at all, but some of ye are hilarious, gullible and hysterical.