On the 12th of March, 1985, the government of the Republic of Ireland finally stood up to the powerful Catholic Church and legalised contraception.
Women leave Dublin on their protest journey to Belfast.
The 1970s saw feminists travelling to Belfast in Northern Ireland and returning home with contraceptives, risking arrest for importing illegal products. They were met by protestors upon their arrival home.
Illegal in the Republic in all circumstances until 1980, a new law allowed some contraception to be dispensed by a pharmacist to people with a doctor’s prescription.
This highly restrictive law was finally changed five years later, despite conservative opposition.
Some Americans were so outraged that “Holy Ireland” now allowed contraception, they wrote to the Prime Minister to complain.
Even so, advertising of contraceptives was still banned, and Ireland continued to have one of the highest birth rates in the developed world.
In Times Gone By... 