Mo Chorp, Mo Rogha: Female Bodily Autonomy In Anglo-Irish Contemporary Literature

Abstract

[Abstract] This project deals with the historical circumstances which have limited the access to abortion in the Republic of Ireland and their impact in literature. First, I study the role of hegemonic Irish national identity in the lives of Irish women, manifested through four main themes: Catholicism, traditionalism, familism and masculinist heterosexuality. Next, I discuss how these themes have been fixed in Irish legislation and what are the effects this legislation has on the bodily autonomy of women. After a short overview of the state of the art, I move on to the analysis of different literary examples connected to this social and legal frame, namely to Eighth Amendment of the Irish constitution. First, I study Paula Meehan’s poem “The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks” and Edna O’Brien’s novel Down By the River; then, I comment on the main features of two anthologies aimed at campaigning for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment: Repeal the 8th, edited by Una Mullally, and Autonomy: a book about taking our selves back, edited by Kathy D’Arcy. I conclude that Meehan and O’Brien’s texts challenge mythical representations of Irish femininity and open the way for a women-led tradition of writing on female bodily autonomy in Ireland, materialised in collections such as those of Mullally and D’Arcy, which prove representative of the issues surrounding reproductive justice in contemporary Ireland and stand as examples of creative activism.