It's the time of year when the state archives are opened and 30-year old papers released.

Something which caught my eye in today's IT is a story about a letter-writing campaign by anti-contraception activists to the Lynch government, which was attempting to legislate for the McGee decision of the Supreme Court. Some of the claims were rather, em, colourful

So, the question arises, were the letter writers correct? Can we pin the blame for the health service, global warming and the credit crunch at the availability of rubber johnnies in pub jacks?

Birth control opponents warned of incest and evil - The Irish Times - Tue, Dec 30, 2008

It is rather remarkable how this group sounds like the anti-gay marriage lobby.

If you think that's bad, wait and see what will happen when we legalise homosexuality.

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Interestingly (and uncomfortably!) the two are not completely unrelated, though the one is not determinant or having any causal relation to the other....so it goes! One constant is revealed: we were f*cked up then....now, no better!

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Grow spuds and be true to yourself...

The "Catholic Judges in a Catholic Country" is quite funny. At the time of McGee I am not sure there was anything but Catholics as members of the Supreme Court. Does anybody know. I cant find it anywhere, nor can I remember anyone else bar Mr. Justice Walshe. I think O'Dalaigh had gone to Europe until late in the year.

I'd sooner a Catholic judge than a Masonic judge.

At least with a Catholic you know what you're dealing with.

IIRC the whole idea of these things being freely available to all and sundry was to drive down the number of unwanted pregnacies and reduce the number of unmarried mothers.

A spectacular failure they have been so!

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This day in Irish History:
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COUNTRY FIRST

Henchy, Griffin , Budd and, I think, Fitzgerald. Those in addition to Mr. Justice Walsh. Anybody care to name the one that was NOT a catholic?

On contraception:

It's no wonder there are so many mid-30-something women in this country who can't have children.

Most of 'em have been neutered since they were 14 and have spent all their fruitful years working in front of a computer, waiting and waiting for the perfect life to arrive.

I reckon if they stopped watching celebrity TV, stopped reading those ridiculous "women's magazines" and were pro-active about meeting a respectable husband (at a young age), they'd live far, far happier lives.

Loads of miserable Irish women knocking around the place these days. Most of 'em hang out in places like Cafe en Seine etc. hoping that some middle class superstar is going to drive them home in his Mercedes.

Indeed.

Soon they'll be imposing them on Catholic schools for the same reasons, with no regard for the pretext and implication they set in the minds of impressionable young men and women.

The pill is a disgusting drug for any self-respecting woman to take. It puts her future children's health at risk. The kind of woman who takes the pill is the very kind of woman who will go for the "morning-after pill" (an even more damaging drug to a woman's repoductive system) and even have an abortion should having a baby "interfere" with her career prospects and her never-ending struggle for that "perfect life" -- a utopian middle class fantasy.