One of the most important social changes in 20th century Ireland came not from the pen of an activist or the mind of a lawyer, but from the dignified anger of a Dublin housewife.

Mary ‘May’ McGee, who died this week at the age of 81, became a reluctant icon of Irish feminism when she and her husband Shay successfully took a Supreme Court case in 1973 against the State’s ban on contraception.

Ms McGee was born in 1944 near Skerries, the second in a family of seven children. She would meet her future husband when they were about 14 years old and hung out around the harbour in Skerries.

He diligently court

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