... as the male domination of many industries, the persistence of sexual stereotyping and the lack of progress on matters such as abortion and child care. This essay attempts to describe the development of the feminist movement in Ireland and discuss the peculiarities of the movement as opposed to those in other states, taking into account the Church, the nationalist movement and the male-dominated governments. Women in early Irish society had many of the rights that feminists have fought for in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The original patriarchal law evolved and changed, so that women held an equal role to men in many ways. (MacCurtain and Ó Corráin 1978; 1) The adoption of Christianity in Ireland had little impact on this Brehon Law, and the two existed side by side. However, on the Norman invasion, the Irish customs became diluted with those of the English, and the subsequent "imposition ...

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