Would you rather live in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland in the 70s?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Republic was at the time of course a very peaceful, stable and democratic state. However it was also the most backward place in the western world, condoms and birth control were illegal (I looked it up, they weren't legalized until 1979), divorce was illegal, there were laws capping women's salaries, institutionalized discrimination against non-Catholics (one awful law I believe was on the books was that if either parent in a couple was Catholic, they had to raise the kids Catholic, and they did not recognize conversions, so basically if both parents were converts from Catholicism they were still legally required to raise their kids Catholic) and the Catholic church locked up girls in slave labor laundries.

Northern Ireland on the other hand was certainly much less peaceful and stable and also has a pretty big problem with its own religious nuts, but divorce and contraception were legal, men and women were legally equal, and there were none of those Magdalene slave labor laundries.

I would go with Northern Ireland.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's something I read on DU.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I can't remember where I originally read the thing about women's salaries, but I did a search and found this (worth noting that  this is a pro-IRA site) http://irelandsown.net/armaghwomen.html

The Catholic establishment, along with the conservative government in the South, further perpetrated this image to confine women to the spheres of stereotypical domestic roles by actions such as banning divorce, prohibiting contraception, and restricting salaries for married women.

It appears it was only for married women, whether that affects the constitutional status I don't know.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BTW, I don't understand what point you're making with regard to the pro-IRA stance of the website.

Basically that such a claim can't be dismissed as unionist propaganda.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

and Northern Ireland is winning. Not shocking though as the religious repression in Ireland then was about as bad as in your typical Muslim country today.l