Name: Housewife of the Year
Start: 2024-11-30T18:00:00+00:00
End: 2024-11-30T19:30:00+00:00
Location: Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast

Housewife of the Year tells the story of Ireland’s treatment of women through the prism of a unique, surreal, live televised competition, that has to be seen to be believed.
Between 1969 and 1995, women all over Ireland competed to win Housewife of the Year. Broadcast on RTÉ from 1982, the programme featured not just the competition itself but also footage of the contestants at home – creating a vivid, nationwide tapestry of ordinary lives.
Here, the former contestants share their direct experiences of marriage bars, lack of contraception, Magdalene Laundries, financial vulnerability, boredom and shame and of course, of being contestants in the competition.
It is a poignant, often hilarious, uplifting story of a resilient generation of women and how they changed a country.
Winner of Best Irish Feature Documentary at Galway Film Fleadh.