«Most Mayo housewives still baked their bread in iron pots, with red coals of burning grass over the closed lid, and boiled bacon and cabbage in the stoves of their cottages rather than the stoves.»
This was apparently the way the May Housewives were doing – as it seems different from the housewives of any other Irish county – in 1966.
This was the year that Ireland, in a series of books published by the US company Time-Life International, was included in its World Library imprint. The series featured countries around the world: China, tropical Africa, Russian Scandinavia, Japan, Eastern Europe, and many others. I have most of the collection, picked up here and there over the years in used bookstores.
These books showing different countries were intended as snapshots of the era in which they were written. So what was Ireland like – as seen from an American perspective – in 1966, more than half a century ago?
Well, for a start, surprisingly, Irish women were clearly seen as inferior to men. It begins on the cover, which depicts a solitary person: an old man, leg in hand, leaning against a stone wall in Ennis More. There is no woman in sight, which is somewhat where she remains throughout the book, referred to shorthand through the text as «housewives» or «mothers».
«The father is the head of the close-knit family, and though he does not push a cart or wash the dishes, he takes charge of the boys when they are seven or eight.»
We never learn what this dad actually does with his young sons once they turn seven and eight – bring them to the bar?
The Irish rarely drinks at home, in part because his wife, like most middle-class Irish women, is likely to be too full to abstain. He prefers to have his brave cup in the masculine company which he finds in the tavern.”
The writer presents a bleak portrait of the domestic life of a toothy middle-class Irish housewife.
The housewife does not eat dinner until the men leave the table. She has no role in her husband’s social life. He goes with his sons and other men to the village bar and to soccer and throwing matches while she is at home with her daughters.»
strangely intense
The relationship between mothers and sons is presented as strangely strong, and it is alluded to as an emotional connection stronger than that of her husband. Calling girls is never mentioned.
«The bond between an Irish mother and her son is strong. She sees that her son gets the best piece of meat, sometimes even better than that which she serves to her husband. She secretly hands him money to dance. She hates the idea of him leaving his house to marry, and in many cases, he is.»
Is this how the ‘Irish mom’ metaphor started?
An Irish mother who does not want to see her beloved son marry, will happily part with him if he embraces God instead of a future housewife.
“The church is the only thing that comes before obligations to a beloved family. A mother who hesitates to see her son married will never raise her voice in protest if he decides to go to Africa as a missionary for the rest of his life.”
The church gets a whole chapter to itself, written throughout with a tone of breathless holiness.
«The priest is deeply involved, directly or indirectly, in everything in his town, and is an informal clan chief, being consulted for advice and direction not only in matters of family problems but also in business or legal disputes, controversy over cattle ownership or Territory boundaries and bickering over the selection of the local soccer team.In some aspects of city and county government that pertain to social life, the priest’s word is the law.
“Like a general in a military society, he belongs to a special upper class. He is highly respected and honored because his calling is treated like other men.”
Bid regarding
There is a full-page color photograph of a priest in his religious uniform, in a picturesque green field with a castle and four young children with a shepherd dog. The caption reads: «The priest shows great respect for his charges.» Decades passed before residents knew what some priests were doing to the children in charge of them.
The writer approves of the Irish body image, and theorizes as to why it is so.
«The ancient traditions of supper at noon and light supper in the evening may be responsible for the thinness of both men and women in Ireland; a foreign visitor realizes after a few days that he has seen few fat people.»
So is politics.
«The great change of 1960s Ireland, which constitutes a new course for the future, is the country’s abandonment of its stubborn nationalism in the past half century.»
Well, we all know what happened next in Northern Ireland.
Ireland’s possible entry into the European Common Market has been contemplated. “The exciting question is what would happen to the partition of Ireland if the north and south ended up as other members of the common market. Inevitably, the economies of the two regions would become increasingly interconnected. If that happened, some members of the government say, the partition would not last long.”
Fifty-five years later, with Northern Ireland joining and then leaving the European Union, that same debate is still relevant.
As for us «housewives» of Ireland, we’re thankfully no longer the submissive citizens we were made to be in 1966.
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