Celibacy was often the only option: Women's battle to secure contraception in Ireland

Health Correspondent Niamh Griffin explores how contraception was viewed In Ireland 50 years ago

Women on the platform of Connolly Station, Dublin in 1971 prior to boarding the Belfast train to buy contraceptives, which were illegal in the Republic.

You need help immediately, an agony aunt wrote in 1968 to a woman planning on sleeping in a separate bedroom to her husband, to avoid having more children.

Letters and interviews in Irish women’s magazines reveal the frustrations and dark humour behind the battle for access to legal contraceptives — generally banned in Ireland between 1935 and 1979.