Garda Apology

Mortelaro wrote: »

To be fair sexual morality would have been expected in the Gardaí at the time and obviously scruples of the highest order in terms of who the members were and what they stood for

The fact that cancelling speeding fines and similar (the corruption you're referring to) was exposed and dealt with and officers exposing it and related issues vilified is irrelevant to this debate because at the time and up to today that was an acceptable norm in society (albeit the vilification in exposed)
Having babies outside of wedlock or divorce was still frowned upon by the majority even if methods of dealing with it were swept under the carpet
A certain amount of the blame for the problem has to be laid at the general population and in some cases all of it in my opinion

Also before the advent of police forces and large hospitals even large factories and the like, the only large organisations of people were army's so as police forces developed they adapted army discipline, discipline was seen as everything.

until less than 200 years ago: The vast majority of people never moved from their village or far from their family thier whole lives so larges groups of people working together free from the constraints of their family would need military disiplin as they might go mad and get up to all sorts otherwise.

Jupiter Mulligan wrote: »

Listening to her whining on Sean O'Rourke (RTE1 ) a few minutes ago, it appears that she wants everyone who was around in 1984 to grovel at her feet.

Evidently, she has decided that she is Ireland's national martyr - Macroom's very own Joan of Arc.

Would not normaly say this but you are an odious indviduial.

mariaalice wrote: »

You are mixing up official Ireland and unofficial Ireland, I had no problem getting contraceptives in Ireland in the very early 1980s it was not an issue for the majority of people. Things were changing by then, an example from Limerick In 1975 Kemmy founded the Limerick Family Planning Clinic. At the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Kemmy. Having said that the very early1980s were probably the last gasb of a powerful Catholic church in Ireland.

Maybe for you maria but that certainly wasnt the case for everyone and condoms certainly were not "widely available" as Maryanne84 claimed. If they were they would have been on sale without questions, instead you had to find a sympathetic doctor (and not all of them were) and then you had to find a pharmacist who stocked them. That simply does not meet any definition of "widely available" as if they were bread and milk or something.

Lets not forget that 1984 was when the shameful Kerry babies case happened and it wasn't uncommon in that time for women to hide their pregnancies and have their baby in secret.

Disagree that the 1980's were the last gasp of the Churchs power, they won the 1983 abortion referendum and were just as powerful in that decade as any other. The last gasp of their power only happened last year when that result was overturned.

Yurt! wrote: »

Michael Noonan, quite rightly, being thrown under the bus here. As I said in the above post, protect the institution (re: the pension), fe*k the mission of the institution. Disgusting.

Only a spiteful person could chase a woman on her deathbed through the High Courts, it didnt bother Noonan in the slightest and he has never even apologised for it. Lowest of the low behaviour from Noonan and Fine Gael.

About time as well

Mrsmum wrote: »

elperello wrote: »

There is a lot of conflation of the public and private lives of state employees in this thread.
All citizens have a right to their private morality apart from their duty to the state.
They don't mix well now and didn't in the past either.

You are so right that they don't mix but it's just a fact they were totally entwined back then. A cousin of mine is a teacher in a small country school and she has two kids with a boyfriend. No one bats an eyelid (or if they do they keep it to themselves.) In the 80s she would have been out on her ear. Judging those times from where we are now would be like dropping a modern person back them. You can't mix the two imo.

While I agree that those were different times I can’t agree that by1984 things hadn’t changed immensely. Lots of girls were keeping their children and raising them singlehanded or with a partner , without marrying.

I lived with my boyfriend from the mid 70s, quite openly and we had a baby in 1979. I worked in a very public-facing role in a local authority and my circumstances were never an issue. After the birth I returned to work 8 weeks later and life continued as normal.
People were very accepting and it was certainly possible to have a career and a child, without being married!

We had as free a life as we wanted, the Church had no say or interference in it. Happiest years of our life really!