Between 1935 and 1979 the importation and sale of contraception and the publication of information about birth control was illegal in Ireland. Political discourse on the issue was grounded in religious doctrine and the issue was virtually invisible in terms of media content. But in the 1960s as the state embraced free trade and introduced free second level education, the nature of the women’s pages of the national newspapers changed. Amid the international rise of feminism, the pages moved away from an exclusive focus on domestic-related concerns to make visible the demand for bodily autonomy and the legalisation of contraception. Such a change not only had the effect of making these long ignored issues visible in public debate, it also helped to frame those issues as a political rather than a moral issue. Such an approach incurred the wrath of those who viewed contraception as a moral evil and saw those who advocated its legalisation as a threat to the existing order. This article assesses the media invisibility of the issue in the early decades of the Irish state, examines the changing nature of the women’s pages in the 1960s, and assesses their contribution to the development of public discussion of birth control and its legalisation in 1979.