{"id":15111,"date":"2023-04-11T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T12:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=15111"},"modified":"2023-04-11T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T12:02:13","slug":"in-memoriam-moira-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2023\/04\/11\/in-memoriam-moira-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Moira Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Such sad news. Another member of the Irish Women\u2019s Liberation Movement is gone. Not just any member, but Dr. Moira Woods, one of the three founders.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was something else. By the time us younger ones were venting our rage outside D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann in blue jeans and curly hair, thinking we were the bee\u2019s knees, Moira had already shaved her head in support of victims of tarring and feathering in the North, conducted a mock trial of Richard Nixon on the back of a lorry during his visit here, carried an effigy of him on a coffin to the American Embassy, and burnt it. Another day she suggested setting her coat alight in Church in protest against the latest Catholic Church outrage.<\/p>\n

Talk about fearless.<\/p>\n

She was also very clever and enjoyed film star looks. As Marie McMahon put it, \u2018besides being by far the most beautiful person in the (IWLM) group to look at, which is an awful sexist thing to say but it\u2019s true! she also had a brilliant sense of humour. And was extremely politically courageous\u2019.<\/p>\n

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1950s Ireland. Image: Richard Tilbrook (wikicommons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Early Years<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in 1934 \u2013 a child of the Raj \u2013 to an English father and an Irish mother, her family were stationed in Burma before being evacuated to Australia after the Japanese invasion. She was then sent \u2018home\u2019 to be educated by nuns, where according to Susan McKay she \u2018received thrashings and expulsions\u2019.<\/p>\n

She was, nonetheless, a brilliant student, ready to matriculate for Oxford aged just fifteen, but switched at the last minute to study in Trinity to allow her begin her medicine degree at sixteen.<\/p>\n

\u2018In her final year\u2019 writes Susan McKay, she won \u2018a medal for psychiatry, a gold medal for surgery and the hospital prize for medicine.\u2019<\/p>\n

Her first marriage was to a fellow student, Roger Hackett. They had two children.<\/p>\n

She later re-married, a surgeon Bobby Woods, who was aged sixty-two, while she was thirty-one. Mary Maher, Woman\u2019s editor of the Irish Times<\/em> and fellow member of the IWLM said she had \u2018never seen a happier marriage\u2019. They went on to have four children.<\/p>\n

While raising her family, running the big house on Ailesbury Road \u2013 Deirdre McQuillan remembers her \u2018at the stove cooking something wonderful while children and people milled about\u2019 – she became intensely committed to political justice \u2013 protesting against the war in Vietnam, the Dublin Housing Acton Committee, and the Northern Troubles.<\/p>\n

Snooty neighbours were not always impressed. The Woods were accused of being \u2018communists\u2019, of harbouring Viet Cong. Neighbouring children were forbidden from playing there.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it took a feather out of her. She had bigger fish to fry.<\/p>\n

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A mural outside the Bernard Shaw Pub in Portobello, Dublin depicting Savita Halappanavar and calling for a Yes vote in Ireland’s referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Justice for Women<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

More and more, she joined the fight for justice for women, so that one day she and Margaret Gaj, owner of Gaj\u2019s on Baggot Street, and heroic fellow fighter for justice M\u00e1ir\u00edn de Burca \u2013 fresh out of jail for pelting eggs at Richard Nixon\u2019s car the same day Moira was conducting her mock trial \u2013 got together in Bewley\u2019s on Grafton Street and decided \u2013 HURRAY! \u2013 to found the Irish Women\u2019s Liberation Movement.<\/p>\n

Pretty much every gain made in rights for women in Ireland can be traced back to that modest get together of these three women.<\/p>\n

This was an Ireland where women were discriminated against from the day we were born. As we detailed in our pamphlet, \u2018Chains or Change\u2019<\/a><\/span>, in every aspect of their lives women were hobbled.<\/p>\n

This began with an education system which funneled us into our designated roles as wives, mothers and caregivers. After primary school we were obviously too thick to do higher level mathematics, thereby excluding us from most properly paid careers, from medicine to airline pilots to bank manager. If a few ladies managed to jump through the various hoops, the infamous Marriage Bar<\/a><\/span> lay in store.<\/p>\n

Once married you were out on your ear, and it wasn\u2019t just for civil service jobs, but also banks, accountancy firms, respectability itself demanded you go home and become, literally, a \u2018chattel\u2019 inside your marriage, where you enjoyed few civil rights. Legally you barely existed.<\/p>\n

Your husband could flip over to the UK, divorce you, get full custody of your children and sell the family home from under your feet \u2013 all above board!<\/p>\n

Having made sure marriage was the only \u2018career path\u2019 open to women the powers that be \u2013 the celibate elite of the Catholic Church and the politicians who kowtowed to them \u2013 aimed to turn us into little more than domestic servants and baby-making machines.<\/p>\n

There was no sex education, no contraception, and absolutely no termination of pregnancy available. Talk about going to war blindfolded, with your hands tied behind your back!<\/p>\n

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@RositaSweetman provides new testimonies from survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, and calls for a criminal prosecution of the Catholic Church and full redress.https:\/\/t.co\/Tas0iA0BPV<\/a>#MotherAndBabyHomes<\/a> #motherandbabyhomesreport<\/a> @broadsheet_ie<\/a> @amandaknox<\/a> @AliceHarrisonBL<\/a><\/p>\n

— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) January 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n