Women's Voices in Ireland

Women's Magazines in the 1950s and 60s

Caitriona Clear

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781474236690
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia britannica

Women's Voices in Ireland examines the letters and problems sent in by women to two Irish women's magazines in the 1950s and 60s, discussing them within their wider social and historical context. In doing so, it provides a unique insight into one of the few forums for female expression in Ireland during this period. Although in these decades more Irish women than ever before participated in paid work, trade unions and voluntary organizations, their representation in politics and public and their workforce participation remained low. Meanwhile, women who came of age from the late 1950s experienced a freedom which their mothers and aunts - married or single, in the workplace or the home - had never known. Diary and letters pages and problem pages in Irish-produced magazines in the 1950s and 60s enabled women from all walks of life to express their opinions and to seek guidance on the social changes they saw happening around them. This book, by examining these communications, gives a new insight into the history of Irish women, and also contributes to the ongoing debate about what women's magazines mean for women's history.

1

Talking Things Over: Real Women in the Diary Pages of Woman’s Life 1951–59

Woman’s Life commenced publication in 1936 and ceased in February 1959. It was a lively and accessibly priced magazine with a rich, varied and distinctively Irish editorial content in the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1950s this content had thinned considerably, and the variety of home-grown features characteristic of the 1940s had been replaced by a greater number of service articles on cooking, fashion, knitting, health, home maintenance and, occasionally, childcare and family matters.¹ However, up to the final issue it retained, in its two or sometimes three leading ‘diary’ pages, the practice of showcasing Irish women’s paid work, business activities and achievements in the arts, in business and in scholarship. It also highlighted girls’ and women’s group activities throughout the country. These diary pages were entitled ‘Gossip with Finola’ until April 1955, when they became ‘Talking Things Over with Maxwell Sweeney’; Sweeney was a well-known radio broadcaster, and when he bowed out in August 1956, Finola took over again. In summer 1958, as part of a general makeover of the magazine, the diary page was re-titled ‘What’s Going On by Finola’, but the content remained the same.

Readers of Woman’s Life

Three quiet young ladies require accommodation for fortnight in Youghal in July. Three share one room if necessary, near sea and dancehall. Wexford.

– Woman’s Life Service Club, 1953.²

It is, as noted earlier, impossible to determine the circulation figures of any Irish magazines before the 1980s, so we cannot know how many issues of Woman’s Life were sold throughout the country. Commercial advertisers certainly used the magazine, and its editor attended at least two Irish advertising conferences in the 1950s.³ The lack of a readers’ letters page in Woman’s Life means that, in contrast to Woman’s Way in the following decade, there is no rough guide to where opinionated and articulate readers lived. However, clues about readers’ geographical distribution can be found in competition entries, in ‘press releases’ sent to the diary from organizations and individuals around the country and, most of all, in the buy-and-sell columns of the Woman’s Life Service Club. To place an advertisement one had to be a member (membership cost a shilling), and the advertisement cost 1s 6d for up to twenty-four words. The usual items bought and sold through this column were clothes and shoes, but prams, machinery (sewing and knitting machines, poultry incubators, overlockers), plants and poultry also featured. Of seventy-three advertisements in one issue in 1952, forty-four (60 per cent) came from all over Leinster (eleven from Dublin, but ten from Offaly and eight from Kildare), twelve (16.4 per cent) each from Munster (six from Kerry, three each from Cork and Waterford) and Connacht (six from Sligo, three each from Galway and Mayo), and five (6.8 per cent) from Ulster (all, oddly, Cavan). Of forty classified advertisements in October 1955, fifteen, or 37.5 per cent, came from Leinster (three from Dublin), thirteen (32.5 per cent) from Munster (four each from Cork, Tipperary and Waterford and one from Limerick) and six (15 per cent) from Connacht (Roscommon three, Mayo two and Galway one) and six also came from Ulster (evenly divided between Cavan, Donegal and Tyrone).⁴

Figure 2 Woman’s Life showcased its service articles, but its diary content drew readers’ attention to women’s non-domestic activities throughout this decade.

All the ‘bonnie babies’ featured in March 1951 came from urban addresses in Dublin, Derry, Belfast, Clonmel and Athlone. The women who sent in these pictures obviously not only read the magazine but expected neighbours, relatives and acquaintances to do so too, otherwise there would have been little point in showing off their babies or grandchildren (The cash prize might also have motivated them, of course.) Of twelve crossword competition winners in the same issue, all but two were from street addresses: in Killybegs, Co Donegal; Abbeyleix, Co Laois; Galway city; Listowel, Co Kerry; Durrow, Co Laois; Castlerea, Co Roscommon; Crinkle, Co Offaly; Clonakilty, Co Cork; and Bray, Co Wicklow. Two possibly rural entrants were from Finnan, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny and Holycross, Co Tipperary.⁵ Christmas competition winners announced in January 1955 came from Fairhill Rd, Galway; Garristown, Co Dublin; Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin; Castle Rd, Ballina, Co Mayo; Conlon’s Rd, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; and Wrexham in Wales – emigrants had a stake in the magazine too, as can be seen in the ‘bonnie babies’ competitions. Most babies featured came from urban addresses in Ireland or England: in January 1956, from Connell Terrace, Mullingar, Co Westmeath; Drumcondra, Dublin; Foxrock and Swords (both in Dublin); Main St, Ballyconnell, Co Longford; and St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, UK and in May of the same year from Cork city; Louisburgh, Co Mayo; Sligo; Bradford; and Wakefield. ⁶ The number of babies with English addresses reached its height in one issue in 1957, where only five of the thirteen infants featured were domiciled in Ireland. Their details were sometimes sent in by Irish relatives, sometimes by their emigrant mothers.⁷

Cork ‘Personality Girl’ finalists in 1954 hailed from Ballydesmond, Mitchelstown, Newmarket, Bandon and Charleville, though it is impossible to tell whether they came from rural addresses in or near these towns and villages, or from the towns.⁸ Winners of the Limerick contest hailed from quite a social mixture of neighbourhoods in the city – Janesboro and Fairgreen (both with a mixture of local authority and owner-occupied dwellings) and upper-middle-class O’Connell Avenue.⁹ The Galway winners were, except for one from Loughrea, from the city itself, and they were National teachers, shop assistants, students and ‘business girls’.¹⁰

As well as this, items were sent in to the diary pages by branches of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA), Muintir na Tire and Macra na Feirme – the last two were rural organizations where women enjoyed equal standing with men.¹¹ Smaller Dublin-based bodies like the Irish Housewives Association sent in an occasional news item, as did the Irish Red Cross.¹² Some local organizations sought national publicity: the South Mayo Drama Festival, the Carlow Arts Council, the Colleen Bawn Cork Nurses’ Social Club and the Glasnevin Lawn Tennis Club are only a few of those mentioned.¹³

Woman’s Life readers, therefore, as far as we can tell, were mostly town-based women all over the country, or women who were organized in some way, with rural readers most likely to be situated in the more prosperous and modernizing farmlands of the midlands, south and southeast but occasionally in the west, as well. Were readers single or married, young or old? The ‘bonnie babies’ feature implies that some young mothers (and grandmothers) read the magazine, and advertisements for products to cover greying hair featured regularly, but the kind of products advertised and many of the beauty articles were aimed at women with some disposable income; and in 1950s Ireland, that meant mainly single women.¹⁴ The advertisement at the head of this section, placed by the three ‘quiet young ladies’ from Wexford for holiday accommodation, gives an idea of some typical readers. The stipulation of proximity to both day and evening entertainment (in a limited word-allocation) established these women’s priorities clearly. Proposing to take holidays in July, they cannot have been farmers’ ‘assisting relatives’, because even in a tillage county like Wexford there was enough pasture farming to demand all hands on deck for the hay in July, and farmers’ daughters working off-farm would have spent their holidays helping out with summertime agricultural tasks. Wealthy young ladies of leisure would have holidayed in one of the many hotels in this popular Cork resort. These three, therefore, were waged or salaried workers – perhaps secretaries, shop assistants, factory workers or even teachers – of urban, or non-farm, origin. Sharing one bedroom posed no problem; they were probably used to sharing bedrooms (and beds) at home. Whoever they were, they were confident that a potential landlady in Youghal would buy the magazine and respond to their advertisement.

The magazine, it can therefore be suggested, sold reasonably well to a mainly urban (including small-town) and limited rural readership, with more readers in Leinster and Munster than in Connacht and Ulster and possibly (though one cannot be sure about this) more single than married readers.

Gossip with Finola/Talking Things Over with Maxwell Sweeney

Both diary page titles bring to mind what Ballaster and Beetham call the ‘intimate world of shared concerns’ characteristic of women’s magazines.¹⁵ Woman’s Life paid for contributions, informing readers in 1953 that ‘all items of news, gossip etc … published will be paid at our usual rates’.¹⁶ Wedding photographs featured regularly but with simple captions of names and places; unlike in the Irish Tatler, there were no detailed descriptions of outfits, attendants, celebrants and guests. Other social events featured rarely; a children’s party and a ‘coming of age’ stood out as unusual.¹⁷ Most of the material concerned women’s organizational, occupational and artistic activities.

An item in 1953 on the only Irish female harbourmaster, Kathleen Curran of Galway, was typical of the diary’s range of interests. This Claddagh woman’s background (she had been educated by the Sisters of Mercy) and her vision for Galway port and docks were explored over several paragraphs. The fact that this was sent in – either by her or on her behalf – suggests that familiarity with the magazine existed in one of Ireland’s most traditional fishing communities.¹⁸ But many of the women featured were already well known, and items about them were probably sent in by agents. Actresses featured included Constance Smith, Valerie Hobson, Maureen O’Sullivan (‘Hollywood’s happiest mother’), Siobhan McKenna, Maureen Potter, Annie Dalton, Phyllis Ryan and Maureen Cusack (sometimes alongside her small daughters Jenny and Sally, now better known as Sinéad and Sorcha). Theatrical wardrobe mistresses and costumiers Mrs Caffrey, Joan Bourke, Eileen Long and Áine Lynch, film-maker Lelia Doolin, film producer Pan Collins and Pike Theatre manager Carolyn Swift were mentioned. Musicians Mary O’Hara and Kathleen Watkins, mezzo-soprano Agnes Curtis and traditional singer Máire Ní Scolaí all featured, as did popular singers Carmel Quinn and Ruby Murray. Writers Kate O’Brien, Bridget Boland, Patricia Lynch, Maura Laverty, Una Troy, Sinead de Valera and Mary Purcell were highlighted. Scholars Nora Chadwick from Cambridge and Mairin O’Daly (‘wife of the Attorney-General’ – Cearbhall O Dálaigh) were noted as giving Thomas Davis Lectures in 1955.¹⁹ The Shannon College of Hotel Management was mentioned, and the ‘brides’ course’ (home management and housekeeping) in Ballsbridge Technical College in Dublin claimed to have more students than ever before. When the ICA offered, in its Junior Leadership Training Week in 1957, a course in guest house management, the organization’s idea of creating a genuine Irish home atmosphere in a bed and breakfast was applauded by the magazine. This is how a substantial number of rural and urban Irish women would make a living for themselves in the succeeding decades.²⁰

Dress designers Sybil Connolly and Irene Gilbert featured very often, but Madeleine Keenan, Neilí Mulcahy, Ann Carroll, Kathleen Byrne, Gertrude Brady (of NYMPH clothing), Peta Swift (former games mistress, ‘now Ireland’s leading milliner’), Cloda Phillips and Elizabeth James designer Sheila Mullally also got a look-in. The dancing schools and modelling agencies of Betty Whelan, Peggy Carty and Miriam Woodbyrne and schools of beauty (Jill Fisher) rubbed shoulders (in print) with hairdressers Helene Griffin, Mabel Ross and Sarita Hickey, the latter only the tip of a countrywide iceberg. Mrs Gallagher of Urney Chocolates notwithstanding, one could be forgiven for thinking that all commercial and industrial endeavour in Ireland was based around female appearance. The mention of seven women at the Advertising Club Ladies’ Night featured in March 1956 reminds us of women’s participation in this male-dominated area of endeavour.²¹

Workers of various kinds sent in their details to the magazine, which indicates a sense of novelty and confidence about female independence and wage-earning. Saleswomen, receptionists, machinists, civil servants, telephonists, factory workers, Esso workers and even a farmer’s wife featured in these pages.²² Sometimes ‘Finola’ interviewed workers. Eight machinists in a Dublin lingerie factory designing for Cassidys of George’s St were featured in 1953. The Cassidys, as well as running a large drapery shop, had two clothing factories in the greater Dublin area, employing 750 people.²³ Dress designer Kathleen Byrne (33) had been apprenticed at fourteen and visited London regularly; Maureen Kennedy, a number-one cutter, had also started work a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Explanation of Titles and Glossary of Terms
• Introduction: ‘Advice, Patterns, etc.’: Women, Magazines and Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s
• 1 Talking Things Over: Real Women in the Diary Pages of Woman’s Life 1951–59
• 2 ‘Wasting Time Feeling Sorry For Yourself’: Woman’s Life Problem Page, 1951–59
• 3 ‘No Regrets For The Days That Are Gone’: Woman’s Way Letters 1963–69, 1: Young People and Miscellaneous
• 4 ‘Have You Been Reading Woman’s Way Too?’ Woman’s Way Letters 2: Women’s Status
• 5 ‘He Didn’t Seem At All Pleased As I Was Leaving The Car’: Woman’s Way Problems 1: Sex Education and Birth Control
• 6 ‘And Then They Wonder Why Their Wives Are Cold’: Woman’s Way Problems 2: Courtship and Marriage
• 7 ‘Everything I Do Is Criticised’: Woman’s Way Problems 3: Extended Family/Parent–Child and Miscellaneous
• Conclusion: Hearing Their Own Names Again: Magazines and Irish Women in the 1950s and 60s
• Appendix One: Political, Social and Economic Developments in Ireland 1951–69
• Appendix Two: Other Women’s Magazines in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s
• Appendix Three: Women, Paid Work and Marital Status in Ireland 1946–71
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright