Forbidden Ireland: Church and State – 1951 to the Present Day

When Bishop Denis Moynihan had Jayne Mansfield's cabaret cancelled from the pulpit in 1967, few could have imagined that within fifty years Ireland would repeal the Eighth Amendment by popular vote. What happened in between is one of the most profound social transformations in modern Europe.

Forbidden Ireland is a powerful, definitive and compulsively readable work of social history. Journalist TP O'Mahony traces seven decades of Church-State conflict. From the shadowed realities of Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene laundries to the national outcry following the death of Savita Halappanavar, and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. At the heart of the story are the women who refused to remain silent. Their courage forced Ireland to confront itself and change.

With an introduction by Rosita Sweetman, Forbidden Ireland is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the events that remade a country - and the forces that could unmake that progress. As women's rights face a regression across the Western world, O'Mahony's account is not only a history of what was won, but a warning about what could still be lost.