Clodagh Finn: We need more Josie Aireys to challenge the legal system

Josie Airey: she would probably find it utterly depressing that so many Irish people are still forced to fight to secure a right to some form of justice.

If she were still alive, Josie Airey, the Cork hospital cleaner, poet, and legal aid campaigner who went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights to secure civil legal aid in Ireland, would be celebrating her 89th birthday on May 4. I wonder what she would make of the protest by the Stardust Justice Campaign outside Leinster House on Monday?

Five decades after her seven-year fight to secure a legal separation from the husband she described as abusive, she would probably find it utterly depressing that so many Irish people are still forced to engage in what amounts to a gladiatorial battle to secure a right, access to the courts or some form of justice.