Old Ireland stirs
by Mehmet Çiftçi, Artillery Row:
Chesterton once said: ‘I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong.’ It looks like the politicians of Ireland did not think that way when they rushed to put two amendments before the Irish people on International Women’s Day, in the belief, as one Irish journalist put, “that Yes votes would have allowed Ministers to bask in the warm glow of the approval of the women of Ireland.” With six political parties in favour and countless NGOs promoting the Yes vote, there was a general complacency among the Irish elite: they expected this would be, as one disability activist wrote, “the latest in a series of referendums that have seen Ireland progress into the 21st century.” It was a done deal. But, instead, they had a rude awakening when the Irish comprehensively rejected what the troublesome literary classes wanted.
There were two proposals. The family amendment was a proposal to give the same constitutional rights and protections to families based on “other durable relationships” as were previously given only to families founded on marriage. The care amendment proposed to delete two articles. One recognised that “by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.” The other stated: “The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.” The proposed replacement for them would say: “The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”
There were many reasons why the proposals fell flat on their faces, despite people being browbeaten over the danger of ‘keeping women in the home.’
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