Chapter 59
CHAPTER 59
April 24, 1971
Maura
In many ways it’s a pleasure to watch Geraldine and Bernie become good friends. Geraldine encourages Bernie to try new things. Ruby lipstick, trousers, meals that don’t include meat—although I have yet to see Bernie actually put any of Geraldine’s recipes into practice.
“Imagine serving my Dan a vegetable stir-fry,” Bernie had said, laughing. “Sure the poor fella would think his throat was arguing with his stomach.”
In other ways their closeness saddens me. Despite their diligence and dedication, my two closest friends in the world sit on the periphery of our group. They retreat to the wings as the halls or function rooms begin to fill with women from all over the country. Their voices are lesser and unheard because one is a mother of three children with a business to protect, and the other is a young single woman who, as such, should have no need for contraception. It serves as a poignant reminder about why we are doing exactly what we are doing, the needless divisions that exist even on our own side.
Over the past six months, word of our meetings has spread like wildfire. Forty women gathered on the steps of The Shelbourne turned into sixty women around the bandstand in the Phoenix Park. One hundred women joined us in an old school hall. Our numbers are ever growing. A message ever stronger.
“People are on our side. They want this,” I say.
Bernie seems less convinced. Mrs. Dunne has a big mouth and McCarthy’s butcher’s has been affected for sure. Some of Dan’s longest-standing customers have taken their business elsewhere, and Bernie, Dan, and the girls are feeling the pinch. I can see the worry and strain in Bernie’s eyes grow with each passing meeting. And yet she cannot drag herself away. She cannot turn her back.
“For my girls,” she says often. “I’m doing it all for Marie, Elizabeth, and Alice.”
Bernie and Ger stack chairs, sweep floors, make tea. Last week, at our biggest meeting to date, with over two hundred women in attendance, one woman asked if they were hired help. That was a low point for Bernie, and I thought Geraldine was going to throw the towel in altogether. But to my delight, they are both ready and waiting outside the Mansion House when Nuala, Sharon, and I arrive.
“I think this will be our biggest meeting yet,” Nuala says.
“Bloody better be.” Sharon sighs. “My blisters have blisters.”
Nuala, Sharon, and I have spent the past week driving around the country pinning posters in every city and village. We pin them to phone boxes. Gable ends of shops. The gates of football pitches. Anywhere we find a blank space, we share our message. We keep our words simple: the time, date, and location of our next meeting. We let folks figure the rest out from there. By now, there isn’t a corner of Ireland that doesn’t know change is coming.
In a small village in Mayo, a man tore down our poster and chased us half a mile down the road.
“Dirty hussies,” he shouted. “Don’t you dare give my wife ideas.”
In another village in West Clare, near the Cliffs of Moher, a woman offered to take some flyers and drop them in the letter boxes of all her neighbors.
The ups and downs of progress are exhausting and my eyes are stinging with tiredness more often than not, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Inside, we get to work. We set out as many chairs as we can reasonably fit.
“People will just have to stand,” Nuala says.
I do some rough counting. There must be three hundred chairs at least, and I can’t imagine anyone will need to remain on their feet. We make tea and skip the biscuits this time.
We place a long table at the top of the room and cover it with a white tablecloth that I fetched from the cupboard in my house. I think it belonged to Christy’s grandmother. I wonder what a woman of her generation would make of all this. Nuala, Sharon, and I take our places behind the table. We have water in front of us, and microphones, just as we did on The Late Late Show . Bernie and Geraldine stand to the side and we wait with bated breath.
My first thought as people arrive is how very noisy it is. Voices boom and echo around the room. I glance at Bernie and I wonder if she’s thinking the same. Numbers grow quickly. Soon all the seats are filled, and, as Nuala predicted, people are standing at the back. I can’t quite believe it. There must be hundreds here. And men too. Not many, but some. People file in, brushing past one another and filling up every inch of free floor space.
Beads of perspiration gather around Nuala’s hairline. She was hoping for a big crowd, but she certainly wasn’t expecting anything so momentously large. “Do you see this?” she gasps. “Oh my God, do you see this?”
Nuala speaks first. It takes her some time to hush the crowd, and even when she does, the room still vibrates.
“Can you really get us condoms?” a woman shouts from somewhere deep in the center.
There is a mass intake of breath as if the mere mention of the word has the power to suck all the air out of the room.
“I’ll take ten if you have them,” the voice continues.
“Oh,” Nuala says, her cheeks flushed. “I’m afraid we don’t have any. Not here with us.”
Grumbles and moans ripple through the crowd and I worry that there has been a breakdown in communication somewhere along the line.
“Contraception is still illegal,” I say.
Countless eyes shift from Nuala onto me. I know I need to say something encouraging that makes all their efforts to be here today worth it.
“That’s that then,” another voice chimes in. “What a waste of time.”
I gaze into the sea of women sitting in front of me. They are all shapes and sizes. All ages. Some, I imagine, left school at fourteen like me and others have university degrees like Nuala. Some are mothers like Bernie or young single women like Geraldine. We are all different and we are all exactly the same.
“Contraception is legal in Northern Ireland,” I say. “Did you know that?”
Some of the crowd nod. Some shake their heads. Some don’t react at all.
“What good is that?” A man’s voice carries over mumbling among the crowd. “My wife died last year giving birth to twins. Our second set in as many years. What good is contraception in the North to women in the South?”
“Belfast is only a train ride away,” I say. “We could go there. Our money is as good as anybody’s. We could go there and buy condoms and the pill for ourselves.”
“Not a chance,” the man says. “They’d arrest us on the spot as soon as we stepped foot off the train back home in Dublin.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Probably, even. But what if more and more women took the trip? What if soon every woman in Ireland was traveling to Belfast for contraception? They couldn’t throw all the women of the country in jail.”
The crowd hums and haws. My ears ring with the noise of it all.
Nuala leans in her chair. She presses her lips against my ear. “Do you really think we could do this?” she whispers.
I shrug. My heart is beating out of my chest. “Honestly? I have no idea. But I think we should at least try.”
“But jail?” Nuala says.
“We should try.”
“But the guards. You saw what they were like outside The Shelbourne. Can you imagine how furious they’ll be if we enter the country with contraband?”
“Someone has to try,” I say. “Why not us?”
Nuala takes a deep breath and puffs out. I feel the heat of it. “You’re right, Maura. You’re damn well right. Why not us?”
Nuala blesses herself. Then she pushes her chair back and stands up. There is instant silence. I’m not sure what she is doing, but whatever it is excites me. My eyes are on her. I don’t dare blink as she places her palm flat against her chest.
“I, Nuala Tyrone, pledge to travel to Belfast, purchase the pill, and return to Dublin with it in my handbag. Who will join me?”
Sharon’s chair slides back and she’s next to her feet. She stares straight ahead, places her hand on her chest, and says, “Aye.”
I hold my breath as I wait for more, but I soon realize no more words are coming. When it is my turn to stand I do not hesitate. When I promise to join my peers on a train to Belfast, it feels less the move of a rebel woman and more a rite of passage. I dare to imagine setting a precedent. I allow myself to dream of a time when women will take contraception for granted, when walking into a pharmacy and purchasing it will be as ordinary as picking up some toothpaste or a loaf of bread.
Slowly but surely, other women in the crowd get to their feet.
A tall woman in a purple hat. “Aye,” she says.
A heavyset woman, with a man linking her arm. She looks at him, and he nods and smiles. “Aye,” she says.
“Aye. Aye. Aye.”
Soon there are almost one hundred women on their feet. Those who remain seated have their reasons, I don’t doubt. They praise and admire those willing to take a stand.
“Come, come.” Nuala beckons the standing women toward our table. She turns a notepad around and shoves it toward the edge of the desk. She places a pen next to it.
“Sign your name here and you are officially a member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement.”
There is cheering and clapping and an orderly queue forms in front of our table. Nuala shakes the hand of every woman who picks up the pen, and her message to each is the same.
“We’ll contact you with details as soon as we can. And thank you. You are going to make history; I just know it.”