May McGee in the Floraville Gardens at Skerries, Co Dublin, with a statue in her honour, 50 years after the overturning of the ban on contraception. Photograph: Alan Betson
It was a Father Ted moment. I asked in my local south Dublin pharmacy for a contraceptive item for which I had a doctor’s prescription. “Not in this pharmacy,” said the pharmacist, quivering with indignation.
“Okay, I’ll go somewhere else,” I said. “Do!” said the pharmacist, still quivering. It was 1983 – 10 years since the McGee judgment had ruled that married couples had a right to import contraceptives for their own use and that the law stopping them was unconstitutional. It was four years since Charlie Haughey had brought in his Family Planning Bill, allowing married couples to access contraception with a prescription.
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