Book Review: Ireland's Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-Irish Underground 1980–2000

Abstract

Ann Rossiter, LASC Publishing, 2009, 237pp., ISBN 978-0-9561785-0-3 (Pbk), d8.00. Distributed by Word Power Books www.word-power.co.uk In 1992, 25 years after the Abortion Act was passed in the Westminster parliament, huge publicity was given to a shocking abortion story in the Republic of Ireland. The case concerned a 14 year old girl, known only as X, who had become pregnant as a result of rape and who wanted, against the law, to travel to England to terminate her pregnancy. Since 1983, the rights of the foetus have been enshrined in the Republic's constitution as equal to those of the 'mother', prohibiting the termination of a pregnancy for any reason other than to save the life of the pregnant woman. Abortion carries a penalty of life imprisonment for both women and providers. In the X case that went as far as the Irish Supreme Court, it ruled that because X was suicidal, the pregnancy could be legally terminated, as it posed a real risk to her life. She was therefore allowed to travel to England and have an abortion. The X case drew the British general public's attention to the appalling implications of Irish abortion law, which, at the time also involved legal prohibitions on providing information on abortion services in Britain as well as on the right to travel abroad to seek abortions. Later that year, both these restrictions were overturned in referenda, though the constitutional prohibition on abortion remained, and is still in place. What was (and remains) common knowledge in Ireland, though rarely spoken of publicly, was that thousands of women have travelled to England, both from the Republic and from Northern Ireland (where the 1967 Abortion Act still does not apply), to seek abortions. Between 1968 and October 2008 it is estimated that over 150,000 women from the Republic, and over 53,000 from the North, travelled to England and Wales. Ann Rossiter's splendid book documents the background to this hidden migration and the story of the support given by Irish feminists in England, particularly, in London, to Irish women who made the 'other journey' from Ireland to England to exercise the right to control their own fertility. Her book, informed by her own and other activists' stories, is a delight to read, ranging from oral history to campaign handbook, from reflections on St. Augustine's repressed carnal desires to an analysis of the case for and against Irish exceptionalism in relation to abortion. She describes in vivid detail the 'alternative' Irish community in London of feminists, lesbians, left