Irish drag performer Panti Bliss celebrates with Yes campaigners at Dublin Castle after voters supported a referendum to allow same-sex marriage in Ireland last week.
Ireland’s Yes vote in the referendum on same-sex marriage spawned an amazing international reaction.
The almost overwhelmingly positive reception was driven, in part, because of Ireland’s branding as a conservative Catholic country. To some commentators, it sounded as unlikely as your grandmother getting a tattoo.
But to those of us who grew up there or recently left the country, it was less of a surprise. It was reaffirmation of the journey of enlightenment that began 30 years ago.
This would not have been thinkable in the late 1970s when Pope John Paul II told the young people of Ireland that he loved them. Those 300,000 teenagers – born roughly between 1962 and 1966 – who gathered in the mud at Ballybrit Racecourse in Galway on September 30, 1979 – have become part of the generation through which Ireland has changed. They have been the pivot between the old Ireland and the new.
They are the ones who left and – in many cases – returned; who have lived through two massive recessions neither of which were of their own making; whose faith in the church has been forever diminished by the crimes of trusted clerics; whose minds have been broadened by education, travel and technology; who have drawn cultural confidence from Ireland’s innate creativity and sporting competitiveness; whose cynicism has been sharpened by the exposure of the nepotism and cronyism of their elders. This group, now in middle age, is also the one whose expectations have been heightened by Ireland’s dalliance with massive prosperity.
But they do not pine for many aspects of the Ireland of their youth. They wanted Ireland to change and it has. They were the ones who elected Mary Robinson and ushered in ‘the changed and changing Ireland’.
Two years after the Pope’s youth Mass in Galway, many of the same teenagers made their way to Slane Castle for a different type of mass gathering, the first of the venue’s massive rock concerts featuring Thin Lizzy and U2.
They embraced the authentic bawdy voice of Roddy Doyle and drew inspiration from Bob Geldof’s foul-mouthed compassion during Band Aid and Live Aid.
They stayed embedded with Gaelic games but welcomed – some years later – the opening up of Croke Park to rugby and football; they can remember exactly where they were when Packie Bonner saved that penalty.
Those younger than this group were almost guaranteed to vote in favour of the marriage equality proposal. Those older were significantly more likely to vote against.
The statistics point to the fact that this generation was at the vanguard of the Catholic Church’s dramatic demise in Ireland.
Nine out of 10 Irish Catholics attended weekly Mass in 1984, according to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. In 2011, that figure had plummeted to less than 20 per cent even though 84 per cent of the population still describe themselves as Catholic.
The voters in the recent referendum took little notice of the church’s advice in the campaign. But it seems that the church has taken little notice of the clear will of the Irish people on this issue. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, in a breathtaking display of hubris and overstatement, described the result as “a defeat for humanity”.
The other disappointing consequence of the campaign was Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s patronising attitude towards Irish citizens who travelled back to the country at their own expense to take part in the vote. They did so because – as Irish citizens abroad – they had no other choice.
But the Taoiseach – who has completely ignored the issue – praised the efforts of those citizens, saying their commitment to the Irish democratic process “shows the value of the issue and the importance of politics”.
We have a different view. We believe it showed that Ireland is out of line with other democracies in not allowing its citizens abroad to vote.
It may be too late for those who attended the Pope’s Mass in Galway and now live in Boston or Brisbane or Buenos Aires but for young Irish people who have felt compelled to leave Ireland for work rather than stay and become a burden on the state, it is another matter of equality that requires urgent attention.
So, is Ireland suddenly this progressive nirvana free of prejudiice and bigotry? Of course not.
But for those who want the country to continue on its journey towards increased inclusiveness, openness and egalitarianism, it is a special moment and one to celebrate.