Fighting to Cherish every single child

Times were horrific for pregnant unmarried women just 40 years ago. Helen O’Callaghan hears of the group who changed all that and more.

SOMETIMES Maura O’Dea Richards can’t quite believe things were so dire 40 years ago for pregnant unmarried women. Yet this was her story. In 1970, she was 30, a financial controller working in Dublin, expecting a baby and not married. It was a time when unmarried mothers were encouraged to give up their ‘illegitimate’ babies for adoption, mend their ways, and look for a good man to make them respectable.

When Maura discovered she was pregnant, she felt it was the end of the world. “It was kind of ‘this can’t be’, it was the cardinal sin. This wasn’t done — end of story. It’s so ridiculous, so nonsensical in terms of today’s acceptance. I can’t believe things were as bad as they were.”