When Was The Marriage Bar Lifted In Ireland?

The Marriage Bar, introduced in Ireland in the 1920s, required women to resign once married and disqualified them from applying for vacancies. It was eventually lifted in 1973 on the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of Women. Various women’s groups, including the Irish Housewives Association, the Irish Countrywomens Association, and the Irish Womens Liberation Movement, campaigned for its removal.

The marriage bar was introduced in Ireland in the 1920s and was later lifted in 1973 on the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of Women. The Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act 1974, the Employment Equality Act 1977, the removal of the marriage bar in the Civil Service in 1973, and the Maternity Protection of Employees Act 1981 were all passed to address the issue.

However, many women affected by the marriage bar are still alive today, with calculations pointing to possibly more than 50 years after its lifting. In the UK, the marriage bar was gradually lifted from 1944 onwards, but in Northern Ireland, it was still maintained in the Civil Service.

In Australia, married women were barred from teaching until 1956, and the bar on employment in the public service was lifted only in 1966. In Ireland, the marriage bar was finally lifted in 1973 on the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Despite the late abolition of the marriage bar, the notion of the male breadwinner persisted in Irish society. The Employment Equality Act of 1977 prohibited discrimination on the grounds of gender or marital status in almost all areas of employment.

When were you allowed to divorce in Ireland?

Northern Ireland adopted the parliamentary system of divorce before moving to a court-based process in 1939. By comparison, there was no mechanism to divorce in independent Ireland, a position reinforced by the 1937 constitutional ban. Divorce was only legalised in the Republic of Ireland in 1996 with the first divorce in this jurisdiction granted in the following year.

The research for this socio-political and legal history has been conducted in archives in Ireland, England and Rome. It is a history which seeks not only to uncover the Irish legal frame for divorce but also assess the impact of so many Irish citizens being unable to divorce either due to cost, moral considerations or a lack of provision. It also profiles the minority who divorced and explores the campaigns which led to divorce law reform.

Outputs to date. ‘Irish divorce and domestic violence,Womens History Review, vol. 22, no. 5 (Oct. 2012), pp 820-37.

‘Ireland and the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857,Journal of Family History, vol. 38, no. 3, pp 301-20.

What is the marriage gratuity in Ireland?

The marriage gratuity was calculated at a rate of 1 months pay for each year of actual reckonable service up to the date of marriage, subject to a maximum of one years salary.

An individual who was re-appointed to a pensionable position in the civil service, having previously resigned and received a marriage gratuity, may avail of an option to refund the marriage gratuity paid to them. The amount due is calculated as the marriage gratuity originally paid, plus compound interest up to the date of repayment. Once repaid, all prior reckonable service may be restored and aggregated with subsequent service accrued for superannuation purposes. A marriage gratuity may be repaid by a single lump sum payment, by payment in instalments during service, or by deduction from the retirement lump sum. Compound interest will apply to any balance outstanding until the liability is cleared.

• Circular 37/1975 ‘Marriage gratuities in the civil service
• Circular 50/1979 ‘Re-admission to the civil service of certain former women civil servants
• Circular 25/1990 ‘Refund of marriage gratuities in the civil service
• Circular 15/2014 ‘Revised rate of compound interest for use in the calculation of refunds to the exchequer

Is gratuity mandatory in Ireland?

• Employers cannot use tips and gratuities to ‘make up contractual rates of pay and cannot make a deduction from a persons wage in relation to tips and gratuities.
• Workers are legally entitled to receive electronic tips and gratuities and they must be distributed in a fair manner. The employer must provide a statement to workers showing the amount of tips obtained in a period and the portion paid to the individual employee for that particular period.
• An employer cannot retain any share of electronic tips. However, there may be circumstances e.g., to pay tax, or bank charges arising from providing electronic modes of tipping, or only where the employer regularly performs to a substantial degree the same work performed by some or all the employees, where such an amount may be deducted that is fair in the circumstances.
• Businesses must clearly display their policy on how tips, gratuities and service charges are distributed.
• “Platform workers”, who are not direct employees, are included.
• Any charge called a “service charge” or anything that would lead a customer to believe it is a charge for service, whether received electronically or by any other means, will have to be distributed to staff as if it were a tip or gratuity received by electronic means.

While employers will be required to include detail on how cash tips are dealt with when displaying their policy towards tips and gratuities, there will be no other regulation of ‘cash tips.

A ‘tip or gratuity is a voluntary payment made by a customer to, or left for, an employee or group of employees which they intended or assumed that the payment would be kept by the employee or shared with other employees.

Why was the Marriage Bar introduced in Ireland?

Reflective of international trends, the bar, incentivised througha marriage gratuity, was typically introduced in response to high unemployment rates, ensuring paid employment remained in male hands. In Ireland, the bar was the first of a series of restrictive measures adopted by successive governments to curtail womens participation in public life and the public sector.The bar for civil servants was in practice in the Irish Free State from 1924.

The marriage bar and gratuity also aligned with Catholic social teaching, which recognised the primary role of women as that of wife and mother, located firmly within the home. This ideology was copper-fastened inArticle 41 of the 1937 Constitution:In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.The Citizens Assembly hasrecommendedthat Article 41.2 of the Constitution should be ‘deleted and replaced with language that is not gender specific.

In 1932, the marriage bar was extended to primary school teachers who were also employed by the Government. Justification for this extension ranged from the alleged unfairness of two income households to the perceived impropriety of pregnant women teaching in the workplace. Arguments for the bar extended to hiring practices at second-level, even though teachers were largely privately employed up until the advent of the free education scheme in 1967. The talent and expertise lost through the marriage ban is staggering to contemplate.

When did the divorce law change in Ireland?

The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1995 (previously bill no. 15 of 1995) is an amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which removed the constitutional prohibition on divorce, and allowed for the dissolution of a marriage provided specified conditions were satisfied. It was approved by referendum on 24 November 1995 and signed into law on 17 June 1996.

Backgroundedit. The Constitution of Ireland adopted in 1937 included a ban on divorce. An attempt by the Fine Gael–Labour Party government in 1986 to amend this provision was rejected in a referendum by 63.5% to 36.5%.

In 1989, the Dail passed the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, which allowed Irish courts to recognize legal separation. The government made other legislative changes to address the issues identified in that referendum campaign, including the social welfare and pension rights of divorced spouses, which were copper fastened, and the abolition of the status of illegitimacy to remove any distinction between the rights of the children of first and subsequent unions.1.

What are the benefits of getting married in Ireland?

Taxes are definitely not romantic, but married couples can share tax bands and credits. This effectively means a spouse earning significantly more income can lower their tax. Revenue do not recognise cohabiting couples in the same way and so do not bestow this benefit on them. Stay-at-home parents of married couples are the big winners because they can access the Home Carer Tax Credit.

The financial benefits of being married are most clear when we look at pensions, married spouses have the right to contributory pensions, and they received a widow/widower pension and the surviving civil partnership pension. The pension system does not recognise other types of relationships in this way.

If married, inheritance tax is very simple: you are entitled to inherit your spouses assets without inheritance tax, even if there is no will in place. If there is a will then a married surviving spouse maintains a right to at least a share of the remaining estate, regardless of what the will says.

When was the marriage ban lifted in Ireland for teachers?

Abstract. In 1932, the Irish government, facing an economic downturn, introduced a marriage ban which required that female primary school teachers were required to resign on marriage. This followed a series of restrictive legislative measures adopted by Irish governments throughout the 1920s which sought to limit womens participation in public life and the public sector. Such a requirement emerged in several countries in response to high unemployment and applied principally to womens white-collar occupations, leading some commentators to argue that it stemmed from a social consensus rather than an economic rationale. Despite opposition to the ban from the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) on the basis that it was unconstitutional, would lead to fewer marriages and that married women were in fact more suited to teaching children, it remained in place until 1958. Although the ban is much referred to as part of the gender ideology that informed legislation in the early years of independent Ireland, the particular history of married women teachers has been little researched in the academic context. Over 50 years since the rescinding of the ban, this article examines its impact through an analysis of primary sources, including government cabinet minutes and the public commentary of the INTO and positions this history within the international context.

Empire settlement and single British women as New Zealand domestic servants during the 1920s.

Pickles K. Pickles K. N Z J Hist. 2001;35:22-44. N Z J Hist. 2001. PMID: 18268821 No abstract available.

When was the marriage bar lifted in the UK?

The marriage bar prohibited married women from joining the civil service, and required women civil servants to resign when they became married (unless granted a waiver). It was not abolished until October 1946 for the Home Civil Service and 1973 for the Foreign Service. A film by Alun Parry for the PCS union provides a revealing view of the frustration felt by many able women before the marriage bar was lifted.

I am very grateful to Sue Randall for sending me copies of two delicious letters to her grandmother, 33 year old Edith Mary Buckthorp, née Hollingworth, who married in 1938. The first (extract above) accepts her (forced) resignation. The second confirms her marriage gratuity. (The second letter also confirms return of Mrs Buckthorps marriage certificate which she in fact never received, to her considerable and lasting annoyance.)

A younger Edith Hollingworth is in this photo of the female staff of the Bolton Ministry of Labour taken around 1929. (Employment Exchanges had separate entrances and separate staffing for men and women well into the 1960s.)

Why was divorce banned in Ireland?

Divorce was subsequently banned in the 1937 Irish constitution and divorcees and those seeking divorce law reform were frequently lampooned by the Catholic church as morally suspect.

When was the Marriage Bar introduced in Ireland?

The Government of Ireland introduced a Marriage Bar in the 1920s, first in the civil service. More specifically, the 1924 Civil Service Regulation Act stated that: …female civil servants holding established posts will be required on marriage to resign from the civil service.