Suzanne Harrington: Housewife Of The Year was Irish women's day off from powerlessness

Film covering the Housewife of The Year contest finds interviewees looking back from a very different Ireland

Participants ‘were judged on their ability to make dinner, budget the family purse, look nice, be sincere, have a sense of humour, and be civic minded’. But the testimony of former contestants in the new film suggests the experience was liberating for many.

If the Rose of Tralee is the Lovely Girls competition, then Housewife of the Year was their Lovely Mammies.

Between 1969 and 1995, around a thousand Irish women — all married with children — gathered annually in regional heats to be whittled down to six or seven finalists. These women would then be whisked off to Dublin, to be judged on their ability to make dinner, budget the family purse, look nice, be sincere, have a sense of humour, and be civic-minded.