Imagine a brilliant female teacher got sacked because she was in a relationship with an adult male? welcome to 1980s Ireland! In 1982, Eileen Flynn lost her job at the Holy Faith convent secondary school New Ross, Co. Wexford. She hadn't broken any law or been bad to her students. Her sin/crime was falling in love with a "separated" man with children. And as if that wasnt enough, the "harlot" chose to live with him! In Ireland in 1982, that was enough. Divorce was still unconstitutional, and would remain so until a razor-thin referendum in 1995. A separated man, like Eileen Flynns partner Richard Jones, could not remarry. So the school's management decided that a teacher living openly with him was a scandal worthy of dismissing her. Because there wasn't any other Catholic schoolkid related issues worthy of anger at the time... Eileen Flynn courageously fought back, heretic hussy that she was, under the Unfair Dismissals Act. And the Employment Appeals Tribunal sided with the school. When she appealed to the High Court, she lost again in 1985. The judge accepted that a school could protect its religious ethos, and that a teacher's private conduct could be held against her. The good aul days, eh?

Good morning Dublin ya big ride 😘