Like many women, I became involved in birth issues through my personal experiences. I was one of the founder-members of Cuidiú, the Irish Childbirth Trust, in 1980. Developing vigorous responses to the complex politics of birth remains integral to my work as a sociologist. I teach in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, and am a member of the Birth Project Group which was formed in 2008 with women from Dublin and Edinburgh,  to explore ways of working together to support women, birth