Women's Roles in 1930's Ireland

In 1930s Ireland Housewives Immigration The typical Irish women had a traditional role of caring for small livestock e.g the poultry, pigs and calves. She would also attend to the vegetable garden and to the growing of fruit. Usually there was no running water or electricity, sanitation was poor and there were few modern conveniences.

Due to De Valera's strict Catholic presidency there was also pressure placed by Catholic teaching on the role of the mother.

The reality of how many women were 'stay at home' domestic wives and mothers is seen by the most popular female magazines of the time 'Model Housekeeping' (first appeared in 1927) and 'Everyday Housekeeping' which survived until well into the nineteen sixties Employment Most women only went to primary school with only a small % having a higher education = already limited.

Very few women had careers outside the home and if they did they were nearly always paid less than men for the same work. Instead most rural women stayed at home yet they had a very important role selling eggs, knitting, packing fish etc to make extra money in difficult times.

In 1932 the Fianna Fáil (De Valera) government imposed a public service marriage ban whereby women civil servants and national school teachers would lose their jobs on marriage.

The government also sought to protect male employment when new opportunities for women and men were opening up in manufacturing in the 1930s. The Conditions of Employment Act (1935) gave the Minister for Industry and Commerce the right to limit the number of women working in any industry. Therefore the government played a huge role in limiting employment for women at the time. The intention of restricting employment for women was especially harsh on the very many women who were single at the time. The marriage rate in Ireland was particularly low, and in 1926 about a quarter of women in the age-group 45-54 had never been married.
Taking all the circumstances into account, many women voted with their feet and left the country. The proportion of women emigrating in the years 1926-36 was the highest so far, with an average of 1,298 females emigrating for every 1,000 males.
'The rate of emigration, especially for single women, remained high during the 1930s and 1940s, with England the main destination' (Agnes and Rose) Birth Rates De Valera, an open advocate of domesticity and also a devout Catholic, was in power for the 1930's. His obsession with moral issues, especially in relation to sexuality, was heightened by the religious fervour of the time. As a result it reinforced the traditional view that a woman's place was in the home,also an act of 1935 prohibited the importation or sale of contraceptives. The most rigorous censorship laws in western Europe complete the picture.

Ireland had such a strong Catholic foundation, heavy emphasis was layed on both the Virgin Mary and Mother Ireland as representatives of the female Irish population.This resulted in women occupying a unique position in Irish society; women have been recognised, not as subjects with their own identity, but have instead “been reduced to symbols of the nation”.