This is the first book-length study to investigate the place of lay Catholic women in modern Irish history. It analyses the intersections of gender, class and religion by exploring the roles that middle-class, working-class and rural poor women played in the evolution of Irish Catholicism and thus the creation of modern Irish identities. The book demonstrates that in an age of Church growth and renewal, stretching from the aftermath of the Great Famine through the Free State years, lay women were essential to all aspects of Catholic devotional life, including both home-based religion and public rituals. It also reveals that women, by rejecting, negotiating and reworking Church dictates, complicated Church and clerical authority. Irish women and the creation of modern Catholicism re-evaluates the relationship between the institutional Church, the clergy and women, positioning lay Catholic women as central actors in the making of modern Ireland. -- .

This edited volume explores the intersection of spirituality with childbirth from 1800 to the present day from a comparative perspective. It illustrates how over this time period in much of the world, traditional practices, home births, and midwives have been overshadowed and undermined by male dominated obstetrics, hospitalization, and ultimately the medicalization of the birthing process itself.

Women, Reform, and Resistance documents the challenges faced by Irish women from 1850 to 1950 and their complex reactions. By investigating prisons, and hospitals; interrogating court records and memoirs; and exploring the 'imaginative resistance' women expressed through folk tales; authors illuminate previously obscured experiences of Irish women.

Birth control offers women the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, plan and space their births, or have no births at all. And yet, in the United States, half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and access to birth control is beset by inequities in education, access, and coverage. Research indicates that women are familiar with the range of contraceptive methods available today. But the persistently high rates of unintended pregnancy, combined with common dissatisfaction and discontinuation, suggest that women's contraceptive needs continue to be unmet. Birth Control: What Everyone Needs to Know will offer more than a user's guide to available means of contraception: it will examine how supported family-planning infrastructure impacts society as a whole. Through reviews of policy, scientific literature, and supplemental interviews with women, it will uncover women's concerns and apprehensions about contraception, as well as the ways birth control empowers women and increases access to educational and professional opportunities. It will provide an overview the history of birth control, the risks and benefits of contraception, the role of menstruation, and the future of birth control. The goal of this book is to provide accurate, unbiased scientific information about contraception in the context of women's lived experiences and the realities of how individuals make decisions about birth control.

For more than a generation, activists and advocacy organizations have been instrumental in agitating for women's health reforms in Ireland. Over the last decade, Irish activists have experienced a number of victories to improve women's health, most notably in 2018 when Ireland passed a referendum to repeal the Eighth amendment, a constitutional ban on abortion. After years of unfavorable laws for women and successive scandals in women's health, Ireland has taken transformative steps to redefine social norms surrounding women's health and reproduction. The case of Ireland's women's health reform offers important insight toward furthering the modern global movement for women's autonomy. Catching Fire narrates the rise of women's health activism in Ireland within a global reproductive justice framework, which aims to understand and dismantle the systems of social inequality that shape, oppress, and restrict reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The volume focuses on attempts by Irish healthcare reformers and activists to improve Irish women's access to essential healthcare services and links key developments in Irish history to reproductive advocacy efforts in America and beyond. Chapters offer historical context behind the modern reproductive justice movement through case studies on women's health issues such as contraception, abortion, and childbirth in Ireland. Together, these case studies celebrate the ingenuity of Irish activists who personalized reproductive justice through the stories of ordinary women on social media and established the Republic of Ireland as a model for future activist movements. Reaching across groups and eras, Catching Fire highlights the underrecognized historical feminist movements supporting recent women's health activism and the enduring lessons for achieving greater gender equity around the globe.

Birth control offers women the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, plan and space their births, or have no births at all. And yet, in the United States, half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and access to birth control is beset by inequities in education, access, and coverage. Research indicates that women are familiar with the range of contraceptive methods available today. But the persistently high rates of unintended pregnancy, combined with common dissatisfaction and discontinuation, suggest that women's contraceptive needs continue to be unmet. Birth Control: What Everyone Needs to Know will offer more than a user's guide to available means of contraception: it will examine how supported family-planning infrastructure impacts society as a whole. Through reviews of policy, scientific literature, and supplemental interviews with women, it will uncover women's concerns and apprehensions about contraception, as well as the ways birth control empowers women and increases access to educational and professional opportunities. It will provide an overview the history of birth control, the risks and benefits of contraception, the role of menstruation, and the future of birth control. The goal of this book is to provide accurate, unbiased scientific information about contraception in the context of women's lived experiences and the realities of how individuals make decisions about birth control.

For more than a generation, activists and advocacy organizations have been instrumental in agitating for women's health reforms in Ireland. Over the last decade, Irish activists have experienced a number of victories to improve women's health, most notably in 2018 when Ireland passed a referendum to repeal the Eighth amendment, a constitutional ban on abortion. After years of unfavorable laws for women and successive scandals in women's health, Ireland has taken transformative steps to redefine social norms surrounding women's health and reproduction. The case of Ireland's women's health reform offers important insight toward furthering the modern global movement for women's autonomy. Catching Fire narrates the rise of women's health activism in Ireland within a global reproductive justice framework, which aims to understand and dismantle the systems of social inequality that shape, oppress, and restrict reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The volume focuses on attempts by Irish healthcare reformers and activists to improve Irish women's access to essential healthcare services and links key developments in Irish history to reproductive advocacy efforts in America and beyond. Chapters offer historical context behind the modern reproductive justice movement through case studies on women's health issues such as contraception, abortion, and childbirth in Ireland. Together, these case studies celebrate the ingenuity of Irish activists who personalized reproductive justice through the stories of ordinary women on social media and established the Republic of Ireland as a model for future activist movements. Reaching across groups and eras, Catching Fire highlights the underrecognized historical feminist movements supporting recent women's health activism and the enduring lessons for achieving greater gender equity around the globe.