The Durational Performance took place on 14th June 2024 at Live Art Ireland. The below timeline of events was transcribed in between sessions spinning sheeps wool. 

 

 

 

 

Considering Time and Timelines

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1765 Magdalene Laundries Open in Ireland. Women in Ireland were incarcerated in Magdalen Homes for over ahundred years for falling pregnant outside of marriage or for any reason a priest or family member deemedpermissible.

1840 – The Wrens of the Curragh. A group of women who lived on the margins of society around the military campat the Curragh. They lived in “nests” within the furze bushes. Described as Outcasts and prostitutes, the wrens led a communal existence sharing food and money earnedthrough prostitution and knitting.

1917- Venereal Disease Act – only ever implemented against women and used as a reason to incarcerate women.

1924- the Marriage bar is introduced in Ireland. What is unusual is most European countries that had these barslifted them after World War 2. Ireland’s marriage bar continued  until 1973.

1935- Contraceptives were made illegal in Ireland.

1972-Ireland joins the EU.

1973- The marriage bar is lifted due to pressure on Ireland from the United Nations who recognized human rightswere being violated.

1982- Eileen Flynn was fired from her job as a teacher because she had given birth to a baby and was not married.She appealed to every court in the land including the high court and lost every time. She initially took her unfair dismissal case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal, which ruled against her in 1984. She then appealed the decision to the Circuit Court, which also upheld her dismissal. Finally, she brought an appeal to the High Court, which ultimately rejected her case on March 8, 1985.

1983 – The 8th amendment was inserted into the constitution. The 8th amendment recognizes “the equal right to life of the pregnant woman and the unborn”

1984- The Kerry Babies- Joanne Hayes is charged with murder for the killing of a baby found on a beach in Kerry. She was identified as having been recently pregnant by a nurse. Her baby was buried secretly at her home after it did not survive birth. She was co-coerced into confessing that she had killed the two babies.Gardai insisted that Hayes had become pregnant simultaneously by two different men through a rare process called – “hetero paternal fecundity”. Only 19 cases of this worldwide have ever been reported. In 2018 shereceived a state apology 36 years later.

1984- Ann Lovett dies giving birth alone at a Grotto on January 31st. She was 16.

2009- Listowel Syndrome. Fifty people; mainly middle aged and elderly men queued up in single file in acourtroom in Tralee, co Kerry. They had come to shake the hands of a man after he had been convicted ofsexually assaulting a woman.

2012- Savita Halpanaver was told that her pregnancy would result in an unavoidable miscarriage. She went tothe A and E when 17 weeks pregnant, when her water broke but her body did not expel the foetus. She requestedto have an abortion at this time but was denied on the grounds that the foetus had a heartbeat. Weeks later shedied from severe sepsis.

2014 Tuam Mother and Baby Home. The remains of approximately 796 babies were discovered due to the diligent work of historian Catherine Corless . The babies remains were placed in a cesspit over decades by the nuns of the BonSecours Mother and Baby home in Tuam.

2015 - The constitution is amended to recognize marriage irrespective of the sex of the partners.

2018- the 8th amendment was appealed.

8th March 2024- Article 41.1 on the family states “ In particular, the State recognized that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.“ the State shall,therefore, endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged be economic necessity to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home” the referendum will be held on march 8th to change the wording to ‘TheState recognizes that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.’ 67.7 percent voted against the amendement.