A Feminism of Their Own?: Irish Women’s History and Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing

For a long time, Irish women’s lives were strictly confined to the private domain, and women’s issues were largely silenced and hidden from public knowledge. Additionally, both Church and state maintained that women should hold a certain morality, particularly relating to areas of sexuality and reproduction. As a result, until relatively recently, Irish women’s issues remained largely ignored and therefore unremarked upon. This paper will examine two major areas in which Irish women’s lives have traditionally been repressed: women’s sexuality and domestic violence, both issues which were once considered taboo for open discussion. This paper will also discuss how these same issues are being represented in Irish chick lit novels, thus providing a frank and positive voice for these largely female issues and for the everyday experiences of women in Ireland