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The Irish referendum caught me by surprise. I mean, I was aware of it — the British media can be rubbish in covering Irish politics (or anything about Ireland in general), but it did cover the referendum, and I have enough friends living in Ireland who were posting about it almost daily for the past couple of months — and I knew how much the result was going to mean both to my friends, and to Irish women in general, but I was surprised, in the end, by how emotional it made me.
It was the #hometovote hashtag that did it. Ireland allows citizens who have been outside the country for less than eighteen months, and who intend to return, to vote, but it has no postal or other form of absentee voting, so eligible Irish migrants have to return to Ireland if they want to vote. And they did so enthusiastically, and in great numbers, for the referendum. People passionately caring about things, and being earnest about democracy and their right to vote always make me super emotional, but the Irish people travelling home to vote in the referendum did more than that: they lifted my spirits and made me feel hopeful. To see so many people travelling home by plane, train, ferry, bus and car — sometime from very great distances — to cast their vote is incredible, but it's more than that. People crowdfunded people's travel costs, organised carpools to and from airports, and connected with other people on their flights, sitting in packs with Repeal jumper-clad, Yes/Tá badge-wearing strangers at airports and train stations and ferry terminals, or shared taxis. People with banners welcomed their fellow voters at Irish airports.
Many people in the hashtag noted that their journeys were in stark contrast to those made by so many Irish women — alone, fearful, in shame and despair — in the other direction, and hoped that their own journeys would render such other travel a thing of the past. And, with their votes, they did so.
That was the other thing that was so powerful and moving. Things all around the world have been so awful for so long, and the virulence of misogynistic attacks on women seem to have increased exponentially, so it was just so vindicating and healing to see a campaign that put women — listening to women, trusting women, giving women the space to tell stories that had for so long been buried in silence and hypocrisy and shame — front and centre. And then, as the results rolled in, it was clear that almost everyone — rural and urban, in almost every county, in almost every age demographic, male and female — were acknowledging, with their votes, the great historic wrong that had been done to so many Irish women, the damage it had done, and were determined to consign such things to the dustbin of history.
I generally have a policy of not commenting on the politics of countries in which I'm neither a citizen nor a resident, but I was so overwhelmed with emotion at the referendum result in Ireland that I had to break my own rule. I'm so happy for all my friends, for those strangers helping other strangers get to the polls, and for all those women who will no longer have to get on a plane or a ferry to get the health care they were so long denied at home.
It was the #hometovote hashtag that did it. Ireland allows citizens who have been outside the country for less than eighteen months, and who intend to return, to vote, but it has no postal or other form of absentee voting, so eligible Irish migrants have to return to Ireland if they want to vote. And they did so enthusiastically, and in great numbers, for the referendum. People passionately caring about things, and being earnest about democracy and their right to vote always make me super emotional, but the Irish people travelling home to vote in the referendum did more than that: they lifted my spirits and made me feel hopeful. To see so many people travelling home by plane, train, ferry, bus and car — sometime from very great distances — to cast their vote is incredible, but it's more than that. People crowdfunded people's travel costs, organised carpools to and from airports, and connected with other people on their flights, sitting in packs with Repeal jumper-clad, Yes/Tá badge-wearing strangers at airports and train stations and ferry terminals, or shared taxis. People with banners welcomed their fellow voters at Irish airports.
Many people in the hashtag noted that their journeys were in stark contrast to those made by so many Irish women — alone, fearful, in shame and despair — in the other direction, and hoped that their own journeys would render such other travel a thing of the past. And, with their votes, they did so.
That was the other thing that was so powerful and moving. Things all around the world have been so awful for so long, and the virulence of misogynistic attacks on women seem to have increased exponentially, so it was just so vindicating and healing to see a campaign that put women — listening to women, trusting women, giving women the space to tell stories that had for so long been buried in silence and hypocrisy and shame — front and centre. And then, as the results rolled in, it was clear that almost everyone — rural and urban, in almost every county, in almost every age demographic, male and female — were acknowledging, with their votes, the great historic wrong that had been done to so many Irish women, the damage it had done, and were determined to consign such things to the dustbin of history.
I generally have a policy of not commenting on the politics of countries in which I'm neither a citizen nor a resident, but I was so overwhelmed with emotion at the referendum result in Ireland that I had to break my own rule. I'm so happy for all my friends, for those strangers helping other strangers get to the polls, and for all those women who will no longer have to get on a plane or a ferry to get the health care they were so long denied at home.