In January 1978, the Dublin Well Woman Centre opened its fifth clinic in the city at 63 Lower Leeson Street under the directorship of Anne Connolly. The aim of the organisation was to help “Irish women access family planning information and services”.
Four right-wing Catholics picketed the opening of the centre with placards reading: “Parents! Contraception means Promiscuity & Abortion” and “No Abortion or Abortion Referral! Defend Our Youth”.
Well Woman Centre picket. Evening Herald, 17 Jan 1978.
The four individuals were Brigid Bermingham, Maureen Fehily, Mine Bean Uí Chroibín/Chribín (Mena Cribben) and John Clerkin.
Well Woman Centre picket. Irish Press, 18 Jan 1978
Bridget Bermingham (or Brigid Bermingham) of 25 Lombard Street West, Dublin 8 was Secretary of Parent Concern in the 1970s/1980s and was also connected to the Concerned Christians’ Group in the early 1980s. She wrote dozens of letters to the newspapers from 1975 until 1986. In November 1977 she handed out leaflets, with Máire Breathnach (Irish Family League) outside a Cherish conference, that stated that there was “no such thing as a single parent” and that the term was invented by the “contraceptives-divorce-abortion-lobby”.
Brigid Bermingham. The Irish Times, 19 Nov 1977.
In June 1980, Bermingham wrote a letter to the Taoiseach Charles Haughey expressing concern about family planning centres and suggesting that they “are no more than prostitution centers (sic) for orgies with … the commercial advocacy of contraceptives and abortion”.
Maureen Fehily, of 2 Leopardstown Avenue, Dublin 18, seems to have been an independent operator. A 1980 letter of hers advocated that Irish children needed a sex education based around the concepts of chastity and moral training and “not assistance in fornication and killing“. She passed away in 1982.
Letter from Mrs. Maureen Fehily to The Irish Times, 06 Mar 1980
Mena Cribben of Santry Avenue, Dublin 9 was a vocal spokesperson for an array of ultra-conservative Catholic groups from the late 1960s until the late 2000s. We covered her political history in a 2012 post on the site. She passed away that same year.
John P. Clerkin of 35 Wellington Road, Crumlin, established the Children’s Protection Society in late 1978. Throughout the 1980s, he rallied against contraception, homosexuality and liberal values.
John P. Clerkin fined. The Irish Times, 27 June 1980.
In 1991, he published a pamphlet entitled ’67 reasons why condoms spread acquired immune deficiency syndrome’.
While they have similar names and have been confused in the past, it would seem that John P. Clerkin is a different individual to Sean Clerkin who ran for the Christian Principles Party in the Cabra ward in the 1991 Dublin City Council Local Election polling 1136 votes (10.4%).
Clerkin mix-up. The Irish Times, 25 July 1991.
Bizarre leaflets from the Children’s Protection Society using the same address and signed by John Clerkin appeared in 2015 and 2017. Further unhinged literature calling on the Irish public to Vote No to retain the 8th amendment also appeared in April 2018 pasted to lampposts and bus-stops. The original John Clerkin, aged 34 in 1980, would be around 72 today so it is quite possible that he or a close relation are behind the most recent circulars.
2018 anti-Repeal material from the Children’s Protection Society. Credit – Irish Election Literature blog