Crummey v Ireland

Frank Crummey (with Anne Stopper)

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Book
€14.99

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Publication date: 2010

ISBN: 978-1-907535-01-7

Category: Memoir

Type: Paperback

Price: €14.99

Throughout his life Frank Crummey has been an agitator for justice, associated particularly with the family planning movement and Women's Refuge and repeatedly using the law as an instrument for change.

In 1977 Frank Crummey successfully sued the Irish Censorship Board and the Attorney General for banning an educational booklet, Family Planning: A Guide for Parents and Prospective Parents, that had been published by the Irish Family Planning Association. This case, known as Crummey v Ireland, was not Frank Crummey’s first or last brush with the forces of the establishment, both Church and State, beginning with the Language Freedom Movement in the 1960s and including Reform, which campaigned against corporal punishment in schools (and drew the ire of the Christian Brothers), and the campaign for the legalisation of contraceptives. Extremely small in stature but possessed of enormous confidence, always on the side of the underdog, always a thorn in the side of the establishment and fearless in fighting for what he believed to be right, Frank Crummey was one of those who dragged Irish society kicking and screaming into the modern world.

‘I am privileged that Frank asked me to write this foreword for his book. It’s a thrilling read which will make you angry, especially, if like me, you have lived through the times he describes so well. His book is uplifting, pointed, human and delightfully hopeful.’

Fr Brian D’Arcy C.P.

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About the authors

Frank Crummey was born in Kimmage in Dublin in 1936. During an eventful and varied career, he worked as a bus driver, postman, social worker and builder, finally finding his métier as a legal executive. Throughout his adult life he has been an agitator for justice, associated particularly with the family planning movement and Women’s Refuge, repeatedly using the law as an instrument for change. He lives with his wife Evelyn in Firhouse, Dublin.

Anne Stopper is the author of Monday at Gaj’s: The Story of the Irishwomen’s Liberation Movement (2006). She came to Ireland from the US on a Fulbright scholarship in 2003 and worked as a journalist and researcher for RTÉ Radio 1. She now lives in Washington DC.