The legal and social landscape of 1970s Ireland was profoundly shaped by the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Its “special position,” formally recognized in the 1937 Irish Constitution until its removal in 1973, allowed its teachings to heavily influence legislation and social norms.

One example of this is the Irish ban on contraception, which lasted until 1979. The Catholic Church believes that the purpose of sexual intercourse should be the creation of human life and that intervening to stop sperm from reaching an ovum is contrary to God’s will. The Catholic Church has also historically viewed contraception as linked with sex outside of marriage and other sexual behavior its doctrine prohibits. Irish women and girls who became pregnant outside of marriage were shunned and sometimes institutionalized. V.S. Alexander’s novel The Magdalen Girls and Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These both explore this aspect of Irish history. In the early 20th century, as other Christian denominations were relaxing their stand against contraception, the Catholic Church continued its prohibition. As condoms and diaphragms became more widely available in the 1920s, the Vatican declared in 1930 that the use of “artificial” means of birth control was a mortal sin and that people using such forms of birth control would be excommunicated (“The Catholic Church and Birth Control.” The American Experience, WGBH Educational Foundation).

Catholic doctrine also shaped the role of women in Irish society more generally. Historically, Catholic doctrine has viewed human beings as divided into two complementary genders, each with a different role to play in society. Men have been viewed as leaders whose role is to marry women and start families with them and then work outside the home to provide the income necessary to sustain the family. A woman’s role in this framework is to marry and then submit to her husband’s authority, focusing her energy on raising devout children and creating a clean, orderly, and comfortable home. The influence of this doctrine on Ireland’s laws and social norms is clear in the novel, which incorporates laws like the “marriage bar”—a prohibition on married women working outside the home—and social norms like the rejection and institutionalization of women and girls who became pregnant outside of marriage. Maura’s position as an abused spouse is made much more complex because of patriarchal norms that encourage people to value her husband’s reputation and perspective above hers and laws that make it impossible for her to earn her own money or secure a divorce from Christy. Other novels that explore this historical repression of Irish women are The Herbalist by Niamh Boyce and 1949 by Morgan Llywelyn.