DUBLIN (LifeSiteNews) — On Mother’s Day weekend in Ireland, the public overwhelmingly rejected proposals to amend the Irish Constitution to redefine family, marriage, and motherhood.
In a historic landslide result, voters rejected the Family Referendum, which proposed to expand the definition of a family to include “durable” extra-marital relationships, by 67.7 percent and the Care Referendum, which proposed to rewrite part of the nation’s Constitution in gender-neutral language, by 73.9 percent. The Care Referendum result represents the highest percentage of “no” votes of any referendum held in Ireland. County Donegal delivered the biggest no vote across the country with over 80 percent of voters rejecting government amendments. Turnout for the double referendum was 44 percent.
Updated referendum map from the Irish Times. What a beautiful sight. This government should resign en masse but they have no dignity so instead this energy will need to be rolled over into Euro, local and general elections to kick them out.
👇👇👇 https://t.co/YF6oHoopGL pic.twitter.com/cZFVkFeoOm— Dr. Eoin Lenihan (@EoinLenihan) March 9, 2024
Maria Steen, a pivotal voice in the referendum debates, reacted to the huge win by telling Gript news that the referendum victory was the “best Mother’s Day present ever.”
The emphatic twin referendum result has highlighted the huge disconnect the Irish government has with the public.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Senator Ronan Mullen warned the government after its dismal referendum performance it needs to “stop playing ideological games” and should “press the pause button on its culture war policies.”
The people of Ireland have had their first chance in four years to give their view as an electorate on the way they are being governed. This referendum result is their verdict on the political leadership class and it is a damning one.
Faced with secretly drawn-up proposals to…
— Senator Rónán Mullen (@RonanMullen) March 9, 2024
READ: Abortions climb to record levels in Ireland with over 10,000 in 2023
On March 8, the Irish electorate were asked to make key article changes to the 1937 Irish Constitution on the issues of family and care in a double referendum.
In the 40th Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023, yes campaigners wanted to erase all references to women and motherhood, and instead replace it with a new article having gender-neutral language on care within the family home.
The 39th Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023 would revise the definition of family to include “durable relationships” outside of marriage.
One of the main campaigners for “Vote No” was Senator Michael McDowell who helped set up a cohesive group called Lawyers for No.
A former Tánaiste (deputy prime minister), minister for justice, attorney general, barrister, and grandson of Eoin MacNeill (one of the founding members of paramilitary group the Irish Volunteers), McDowell believed if the Family Referendum were enacted and extended the definition of a family to include “other durable relationships,” it would therefore lead to “huge uncertainty into our fundamental law.” He said this would “open the door to concurrent and successive families with multiple partners.”
Campaigners supporting these changes could not rule out if polygamous relationships could fall under the unlimited scope of “durable relationships” during the run up to the March 8 vote, held on International Women’s Day. McDowell said it would be a “huge challenge” for courts not to count polygamous unions as “durable relationships” if amended.
The only main political party in Ireland to support a double no vote in the referenda was Aontú, a pro-life party.
Leader of Aontú, Peadar Toíbín, told Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman that the Irish Constitution is “not the place for definition-free phrases such as “durable relationships.” The former Sinn Féin politician questioned the knock-on impact of including similarly vague terms in the Constitution on “succession laws, wills, taxation and immigration.”
The Irish Catholic Bishops supported a no vote in both amendments. On February 25, they issued a detailed statement saying: “The proposed Family amendment to the Constitution diminishes the unique importance of the relationship between marriage and family in the eyes of Society and State and is likely to lead to a weakening of the incentive for young people to marry.”
The bishops added, “The Care amendment would have the effect of abolishing all reference to motherhood in the Constitution and leave unacknowledged the particular and incalculable societal contribution that mothers in the home have made and continue to make in Ireland… The role of mothers should continue to be cherished in our Constitution.”
All the main political parties in Ireland, excluding Aontú, and a handful of independent politicians called for a double yes vote in the twin referenda.
Mary Lou MacDonald, leader of the main opposition party Sinn Féin, said changes to the Constitution would be a “positive step forward.”
Sinn Féin have supported all government-led referenda in recent years, including the legalization of gay “marriage” and abortion in Ireland.
The Irish government, as in previous referenda in recent years, was seeking a “Yes” vote to appease an influential myriad of tax-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and a proportion of the Irish population who reject the country’s persistent traditional Christian values.
Under the banner of “equality” and “inclusivity,” Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar hoped passing the amendments would “reinforce the fact that Ireland is a modern, inclusive nation that strives to treat and care for all its people equally.” He said that changes to amend the Constitution would ensure that Ireland remained “on a pathway to liberalism” following the legislation of “divorce, marriage equality, and to repeal the 8th amendment (permitting legal abortion).”
Varadkar also took a cheap swipe at the conservative leaning “No” campaign during the lead up to the referendum by saying that a “no vote will be seized on as a victory by those who want to slow or stall our progress as a society.”
Irish journalist and author of “Give Us Back the Bad Roads,” John Waters wrote on his Substack page that the Irish government were using “the same old ‘progressive’ bait to lead people to perdition, towards a total stripping of their rights as human persons, in the guise of progress.”
Waters added that the ulterior motive for the referenda was a “continuation of the long war on the fundamental right’s section of the Irish Constitution, which has been going on for many years, but especially aggressively in the past dozen or so.”
The No campaign received notable international support and attention in the build-up to the March 8 vote.
Owner of X Elon Musk, who has been closely watching Ireland in recent months due to the draconian Hate Speech Laws, supported an online message advocating for a double no vote by Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor.
READ: Elon Musk promises to fund legal challenges to Ireland’s proposed ‘hate speech’ laws
Laoise De Brún, founder of “The Countess” – an advocacy group for women and children – told Tucker Carlson how the referenda were being used to “strip constitutional rights from mothers under the guise of feminism and more broadly about mothering and Ireland.”
After securing a landslide victory in the joint referenda, De Brún jubilantly told reporters at Dublin Castle that the win was a “huge victory for the people of Ireland and it’s the first nail in the coffin for this ideologically captured government.”
She said it was a “win for mothers and motherhood.”