The years 1968-73 are a key period. The initial Irish response to the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae – reaffirming traditional Catholic teaching on contraception – was muted, compared with Europe or the United States, reflecting continuing Irish deference to clerical authority; clerical dissent was also limited. By 1972 however, two family planning clinics had opened in Dublin, and the ban on contraception was being challenged in the courts and the Oireachtas (parliament).This was happening against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Troubles and a debate over minority rights. During the early 1970s there was a possibility that Ireland would come into line with other European countries, where laws against contraception had been liberalised in recent years. The Catholic Hierarchy argued that liberalising contraception would damage public morality, and that argument was repeated by the government. Given the political challenges of enacting legislation to enable even limited access to contraception, the government preferred to await the outcome of a Supreme Court judgment on the legality of the existing ban.

In the McGee judgment, (1973) the Supreme Court affirmed the right of a married couple to plan their family. Family planning clinics, and access to condoms. Students’ unions played a key role – reflecting the expansion in higher education. Opinion polls show increasing support for legislative reform, but a majority of voters in rural areas remained opposed, and most of those favouring reform wanted contraception to be restricted to married couples. Irish women’s organisations were divided on the issue. Women journalists played a key role in informing their readers about contraceptive and contact details for family planning outlets, and second-wave feminists were active in the radical wing of the family planning movement. Women were also prominent in the conservative pressure groups that emerged during the 1970s; these were modelled on anti-abortion movements in Britain and the United States. By the end of the decade the Billings method of ‘natural’ family planning, which was mainly led by women, was being promoted as an opportunity for Ireland to demonstrate that fertility control was feasible without re-course to ‘artificial’ methods of contraception.