Theatre review - The Train

Abbey Theatre, Dublin

It’s 1971, and the term “kicking against the pricks” has rarely been more literal. Ireland is doing a fine impression of being the Iran of the north Atlantic, and Irish women have had enough of their status as second-class citizens denied privacy and bodily autonomy.

In a fine piece of symbolic protest, a group led by the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement hopped a train to Belfast to purchase some of the contraceptives banned in the priest-ridden Republic, daring, on their return, the customs officials to enforce the ridiculous ban.