Irish reject modernizing constitution
The recent death of Brian Mulroney brought back memories of the Shamrock Summit, the St. Patrick’s Day sing-a-long with Ronald Reagan in Quebec City 39 years ago this Sunday.
St. Patrick was Ireland’s principal evangelizer and patron saint, but now Ireland has largely lost its faith. Irish monks saved civilization a long while back, but now Ireland’s cultural importance is as an exile where aging Jedi pantheists go to die. St. Patrick’s Day is thus an occasion of Irish nostalgia and bonhomie, arguably better observed in the American and Canadian diasporas than at home.
This St. Patrick’s Day, renewed attention is being paid to Ireland. What in the name of a four-leaf clover happened in its constitutional referenda on March 8?
The government proposed two amendments to the constitution that are subject to popular referendum in Ireland. The opposition parties and entire media and cultural establishment agreed with the government about the need to “modernize” articles relating to marriage, family and the role of women as mothers.
The Irish constitution is an unusual thing. Passed in 1937, it reads, in part, as an act of defiance toward the British Protestants who kept Catholic Ireland down for so long.
Secular fundamentalists in Canada who hyperventilate at our Constitution’s preamble reference to the “supremacy of God” would pass out from the Irish version: “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred.”
There is a “We the People” clause, too, but no American reticence about who “nature’s God” might be. The Irish constitution is clear: “Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial.”
Thus the language of the constitution is rather at odds with the secular Europe that Ireland is eager to imitate. Consequently, there have been a series of amendments recently. The most important were the amendments to implement the 1998 Good Friday accords. The identification of the “Irish nation” with “all of Ireland” was removed, and the aspiration of a united Ireland was made subject to a democratic consensus in both the Republic and in Northern Ireland.
Constitutional amendments permitting abortion (2018) and same-sex civil marriage (2015) passed easily. So when the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, proposed two amendments to be voted upon on International Women’s Day (March 8), it was expected by all to be clear sailing.
The “family amendment” addressed the present article by which “the State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.” Reference to “marriage” would be replaced by “durable relationships.”
The “care amendment” was aimed at the article in which “the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved,” and “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 amendment would have replaced all that with reference to all those who care for others.
Everyone expected the measures, given that the language of the original articles is heard nowhere in Ireland today, would pass easily. They didn’t.
The family amendment was rejected 67 per cent to 32 per cent, and the care amendment 74 per cent to 24 per cent. A humiliated Varadkar characterized the result as “two wallops.” It is expected that some ministers will have to resign after being shown to be so out of touch with voters.
What does it mean? Is social conservatism on the rise in the emerald isle? Unlikely. The articles in question have little effect on daily Irish life, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage. But they were powerful symbols, and a goodly portion of Irish voters did not care for the disdain held by the political establishment for Ireland’s heritage and traditional culture — even if fewer Irish live in accord with it.
There are complicated and overlapping explanations for the defeat, but there is no doubt that the results — the largest margin in any constitutional referendum — reflect a rejection by ordinary people of their supposed betters telling them to be embarrassed by their history.
The wider implications should not be ignored. After the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, the Brexit referendum in June 2016 was reconsidered as a precursor, a potent expression of economic nationalism at the polls. Brexit won by a narrow margin, 52-48.
Proudly Irish-american President Joe Biden is running for re-election on a platform of strident social liberalism. Vice-president Kamala Harris visited this week an abortion clinic, the first time that has been done by a president or vice-president.
Attention should be paid. The lopsided results in Ireland mean that many who disagreed with the values in the original constitutional articles either didn’t vote (turnout was 44 per cent) or still rejected the amendments. Another populist wave, this time cultural rather than economic, may have started on one side of the Atlantic. Will it crash down on the other side, where, after all, there are far more Irish than in Ireland itself ?
A blessed St. Patrick’s Day to all readers!