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June Levine's Legacy

June Levine wrote three very successful books, which were detailed about woman’s rights, she worked as a journalist, and as a researcher on Gay Byrne’s Late Late Show. Her book “Sisters” describes her own personal experiences in terms of Irish feminism, and how a group of women decided to set up the Irish Women’s Movement and June Levine was there from the start. Her books are still very popular to this day, however, she is most renowned for “The Contraceptive Train”. This was in 1971 when she became concerned by the catholic church’s control of Irish women’s sexuality. She was the founder member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM). She and other IWLM members got on a train from Pearse station to Belfast with the intention of bringing back contraceptives to Dublin. This action was a landmark in history for the Irish women’s movement, it helped break the “taboo against discussing contraceptive practice”. This also made a powerful statement into raising awareness of the issue surrounding women and contraception. In later life, Levine became interested in meditation and spiritual beliefs within Sahaj Marg, she visited Shri Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari in India, and she became active in the women’s movement in India. She was very popular with everyone she worked with, especially her close friend and colleague Nell McCafferty. She was a very strong and powerful woman who faced “jailed sentence and death threats” according to her best friend Nell McCafferty at a press conference when Levine’s famous book “Sisters” was republished. Following her death in 2008, June Levine became known for being an Irish journalist, Novelist, and feminist who played a central part in the Irish Women’s Movement. She wrote articles for the Irish times while she was still a teenager, this showed how smart she was for her age, and she carried that through her life with the progress she achieved for women in Ireland and the long-lasting legacy she left behind.

1. June Levine, Sisters: the personal story of an Irish feminist (1982)

2. Tiernan, Sonja. Levine, June | Dictionary of Irish Biography. [online] Available at: https://www.dib.ie/biography/levine-june-a9670.

3. independent. Mary Kenny. My extraordinary, contradictory, beautiful friend June Levine. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/my-extraordinary-contradictory-beautiful-friend-june-levine-26485638.html

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Levine

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraceptive_Train

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_McCafferty