Liberty, gender and sexuality

Abstract

Modernisation produced a collision of incompatible ways of life in Ireland. The resulting ‘cultural collisions’ between local and global, modern and traditional, religious and secular, urban and rural — and most significantly personal and political — have produced a profound cultural transition, based on a search for liberty. During the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of new social movements unleashed demands for greater personal liberty in the form of a relaxation of moral codes (notably in relation to the control of sexuality), of censorship, and of restrictions on personal freedom. This chapter explores the role of new social movements as agents of change and transformation, and examines how they contributed to a more open society.