Two Referendums

2015 - 2018: In three years a country once governed closely by the Catholic church voted twice to change that, by large majorities.

For most of the twentieth century the social law of the Irish state and the teaching of the Catholic church were close to the same thing. Divorce was unconstitutional until 1995. Contraception was restricted into the 1980s. The Eighth Amendment, inserted into the constitution by referendum in 1983, gave the unborn a right to life equal to that of the mother.

On 22 May 2015 Ireland voted on whether marriage could be contracted by two people without distinction as to their sex. It passed with 62.07 per cent in favour on a turnout of 60.5 per cent, the highest for any referendum in twenty years. Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce same sex marriage by popular vote rather than by parliament or court.

Three years later, on 25 May 2018, the Eighth Amendment was put to the people again. Repeal carried by 66.4 per cent to 33.6, on a turnout of 64.13 per cent, higher than 2015 in all but four of the forty constituencies. Legislation for termination of pregnancy followed by the end of that year.

Both campaigns were marked by people returning home to vote, often at their own expense and from the far side of the world, which is a particular kind of Irish political event. Whatever view anyone takes of either outcome, the pair of them mark the point at which the relationship between the state and the church, which had been loosening for thirty years, was formally rewritten by the electorate itself.