Rosemary C Adaser

Rosemary Adaser of @MixedRaceIrish tells CERD about the experience of her community in mother and baby homes & industrial schools, and highlights the importance of understanding historical antiblackness in Ireland. We seek a state apology for their treatment. Video Part 1 #cerd19

Ambassador Sonja Hyland today presented copies of her credentials to Mr Scott Furssedonn-Wood LVO, Director of Protocol and Vice-Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, marking the beginning of her posting as Ireland’s Ambassador to Great Britain.

Married Irish women had limited rights to own property or have a bank account without their husbands' consent, well into the 1970s! The foundation of this inequality lies in a legal principle known as "coverture." Under this doctrine, when a woman married her legal identity was subsumed by her husband's. The husband and wife were considered a single legal entity, but the husband was the one in control. This meant that a married woman could not own property in her own name or enter into contracts. She couldnt control her own earnings or sue or be sued. This system effectively made a husband the legal owner of his wife's property and income, a situation that had a direct impact on her ability to open and manage a bank account independently. The implications for domestic violence, coercive control and financial abuse are obvious. Lets go back to the 19th century. While Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, some positive changes began with The Married Women's Property Act of 1882. This allowed some wives to hold property and enter contracts separately from her husband. But it was the 1957 Married Women's Status Act, which represented a major development in the property rights of wives, further solidifying their ability to own and dispose of property as if they were unmarried. However shockingly it wasnt till the 1970s that things started to approach gender equality for married females.The "Marriage Bar" which legally required women in the public sector like the Civil Service (and often in the private sector, such as banking) to resign upon marriage, was abolished in 1973. The Family Home Protection Act of 1976 was another important law that prevented a husband from selling or mortgaging the family home without his wife's written consent, giving women a new level of security and control. Despite these legal changes, the practice of requiring a husband's signature for a married woman to open a bank account persisted in many financial institutions well into the 1970s. The Employment Equality Act of 1977 prohibited gender and marital status discrimination in employment, which helped to further dismantle the male breadwinner model and solidify women's economic independence.