Based both in London and Ireland, we spoke to several of the groups leading the fight with courage, creativity – think crashing Dublin's St Patrick’s Day parade to scream “PATRIARCHY!” – and a sense of optimism that change is closer than ever.The Abortion Rights Campaign stages workshops, 'SpeakOut' sessions, and an annual March for Choice, now in its fourth year. They view the present as a time of change for Ireland.“I remember waking up and finding out that the marriage referendum had been won and thinking, 'we can do anything, we can change anything,'" said Linda Kavanagh, an activist with ARC.“Following the most recent party conferences – Sinn Féin , Labour and the Greens all now have mandates to repeal the Eighth. We have passed some exceptionally progressive laws this year, between the marriage referendum and the Gender Recognition Bill. It can no longer be presumed that we are a conservative nation.”ARC work with pro-choice groups around the country, in Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Sligo, bringing them together every year with the March for Choice. This year’s march had a notably upbeat atmosphere.Kavanagh said: “It's great to be surrounded for one day by like-minded people who can celebrate being pro-choice with you, to be out on the streets being pro-choice and proud, instead of marching in reaction to yet another tragedy.”Ever since 1983, the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution has given equal rights to the unborn as to the mother, preventing abortion even in cases of rape and incest. The Coalition to Repeal the Eighth was convened in 2013 by Ailbhe Smyth, an activist and former head of Women’s Studies at University College Dublin.“You could say that in Ireland, our culture has come of age over the last twenty years,” she said. “But that change was in process before the referendum, it didn’t just drop down from the sky.” Campaigns against the Eighth Amendment began the year it was introduced, with resistance building steadily ever since.Asked if social media has played a role in embarrassing the Irish government on an international scale, Smyth replied “Yes, definitely. I do think our government are vulnerable to that. They notice the international shame. But it doesn’t force them to do anything.”Women are coming forward to tell their abortion stories, with celebrities well-known journalists and ordinary women among them. It’s a tactic which worked to success during the marriage referendum, though Smyth stressed that it needs to be done with respect, and a view to protecting women in a country where pro-life groups still take to the streets with loudspeakers and ‘Catholic advocacy group’ the Iona Institute are still afforded column inches.“Most of the women who tell their stories are young, and I do worry about possible repercussions. People say that – strategically – this is important, but we need to take care that every woman who tells her story has access to support.”