On a May evening in 2018, Dublin Castle was mobbed by people celebrating a referendum result: 66.4 per cent of Irish voters had supported legalising abortion. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, was met with cheering crowds. It was reminiscent of 2015 when the country had just voted by 62 per cent to legalise same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to do so by popular vote. The world watched Ireland’s transformation. Hillary Clinton tweeted her congratulations. At last Ireland had escaped the shackles of Rome and strode into the world: cosmopolitan, modern and happy.
Today, the commanding heights of the Irish establishment are likely yearning for this halcyon past. On 8 March their vision of Ireland as a great progressive power was complicated by voters. Two proposals, supported by the government, were put to referendum: one sought to expand the constitution’s definition of the family, the other to update its stipulations about women and their role in the home. The argument was simple: these aspects of the constitution are an expression of the values of the 1930s, not the 21st century. Both proposals – so the government thought – would be accepted. Progressive Ireland would expand again.
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