1995 Divorce referendum 50.3 % voted Yes

Juran

Was watch Reeling in the Years 1995.

Watching the old news reels this evening ... 80 year old men and women with their 'vote No' banners, the priets and bishops encouraging a No vote, old male politicans against divorce. And the yes vote won by only a tiny margin 50.3%. Bloody hell, it was like watching something out of Afganistan in 2022.

If we voted today, what would be the result do you think ?

Ps. I was 21 years old in 1995 and voted yes.

dontmindme

Current affairs??

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058259394/1995-divorce-referendum-50-3-voted-yes

50.4?

Do I win?

Pissy Missy

Probably 80ish% yes today

Juran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119490900#Comment_119490900

Wrong .... IMHO

Montage of Feck

Ah, the nineties when the future looked bright.

I'd say 82% or more. Based on 2019 referendum result. Probably more from urgency aspect.

freshpopcorn

In 2018 when we voted to liberalise divorce laws, 82% voted in favor and 18% against.

You'd still met the odd one who'd be very prudish about divorce, people being gay, etc but they are a minority now

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058259394/1995-divorce-referendum-50-3-voted-yes

"On a geographical front the country was divided with a strong YES vote in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare. Cork South Central, Limerick East and Louth also voted YES and the rest of the country said NO! There is a theory that the weather affected the vote and some believe that if it hadn't rained heavily on the day in the largely No-vote West, the referendum could have been lost." (from the RTE website)

It's hard to know what the result would be today given that fewer and fewer people even bother to get married nowadays.

I suspect that the turnout today would be much lower than back in 1995 when such things really mattered to people who were struggling to drag Ireland out of the control of the Catholic church.

Juran

Ireland looked like an awful place to live when you look at Reeling in the Years up to the 90's. Bans on contraceptives, divorce, abortion, little employment, most of the country were piss poor, country run by old men and the church. I wonder if any other western country progressed so fast ?

Pissy Missy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491022#Comment_119491022

It was very backwards, only in the 90's did it become illegal to rape your wife

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491022#Comment_119491022

But of course not everything was seen through the prism of liberal politics at the time even if that's how its presented and understood retrospectively.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491022#Comment_119491022

Not to mention all the bad teeth. It's one of the stand-out things for me when watching RITY. Everyone's delph was AWFUL.

Galwayguy35

The summers were good though.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491089#Comment_119491089

Also everyone looked ancient.

I needed to go through the DIT (and precursor colleges) student newspapers, and until about 1993, the student reps all looked like 40 year old bank staff. They were 18-21. Guys with Dick Spring taches, the women in skirt suits and pouffy perms.

Took a generation for not looking 20+ years older than you were to work through to everyone I gues.

SuperBowserWorld

People liked to suffer back then.

Would you like your freedom or be miserable until you die ?

It's part of Catholicism that you have to suffer, and that it's normal and that everyone is suffering. For their sins. Etc etc etc

There are people with big pensions, houses, good health, happily married (or partner passed), still believe this and would vote NO to divorce today too. They would condemn someone to a lifetime of a miserable "marriage".

You still can't remarry in the Catholic church if you've been divorced.

Leg End Reject

The 90s were a largely positive time, contraceptives were more readily available, the church was losing its iron-fisted grip, younger generations were far less conservative, unmarried mothers weren't packed off to be tortured by the nuns in quite the same numbers and none after 1996, church scandals were uncovered and we had the first roar of the now extinct Celtic Tiger.

If you want grim go back to the 80s.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491078#Comment_119491078

Yes, people just got on with their lives and were happy with their lives

People will look back at the 2020s and think the same

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491071#Comment_119491071

No that happened in the early 80s

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491193#Comment_119491193

That is not an accurate explanation of what motivated Catholics and other Christians to not join in with liberal ideas of freedom.

Reeling in the Years is not proper social history. It is just looking at the recent past and going "Hey look at all these crazy people with their social patterns that don't make any sense!"

There's no attempt to understand people on their own terms, because that is seen as making a political concession to non-liberal modes of life.

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491071#Comment_119491071

That’s decades of FFFG misrule for you.

Don’t even mention their gulags for “fallen women”.

mazdamiatamx5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491022#Comment_119491022

Depends on what you mean by progress. There were ways around the bans on contraceptives.

Most of the country is still piss poor, and the country is still run by the ideas of old men.

As an atheist, I preferred the rule of the RCC to the aggressive 'dog eat dog' variant of consumerist capitalism which is now the only game in town.

It does look shocking in hindsight that the referendum legalising divorce passed by such a wafer-thin majority. But it's false to suggest it was because of the older generation or the RCC's grip on the public debate, I knew at least two of my own peer group (I was 22 then) who voted against, and they weren't even particularly dogmatic Catholics, I knew several others who didn't vote 'because they couldn't be bothered'.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491290#Comment_119491290

It was more down to two centuries of doctrinaire Catholicism. Virtually no political party could have countered that but it's probably fair to say that FF certainly drank the Cardinal's Kool Aid for a long time. FG barely had a seat at the table for most of the time in question.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491281#Comment_119491281

1990, the 1981 act didn't include it.

https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/irish-legal-heritage-marital-rape#:~:text=Marital%20rape%20only%20became%20a,the%20rape%20of%20his%20wife'.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/marital-rape-law-rejected-due-to-family-concerns-1.17055

Cosmo Kramer

Looking back at it now, the country changed to an almost unbelievable extent between about 1995 and 2000. We probably didn't notice it so much at the time we lived through it, but Ireland in 2000 probably has more in common with 2022 than with 1995, even though 95 was only five years earlier.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491281#Comment_119491281

1990.

UsBus

I'd take the 90s in a heartbeat over the absolute cesspit of a country we live in today. It was an exciting time, full of promise and possibilities. Ireland has gone backwards the last 15 years and I don't see where it is going to end up, horrible place with no prospects for many. I often think back to the 90s to forget about the absolute rip off hellhole the country is now.

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491324#Comment_119491324

FG had plenty of time in power.

Governments are supposed to lead, not be lead. Let’s not excuse their cowardice on failing to tackle human rights abuses. Indeed FFFG’s collusion with human rights abuses.

Pissy Missy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491281#Comment_119491281

1990/1991 actually

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491022#Comment_119491022

That’s because you have no context! I got married in 1990 in Switzerland, if we had gotten married a year earlier my wife’s employer would have needed my written permission to continue employing her. Women had only obtained local voting rights 20 years earlier and two or possibly three bishops were refusing to accept Vatican II and reverting to running their dioceses according to the Latin tradition.

i was very involved in the management of youth hostels back then and a hot debate among the European associations was - family rooms: would the public accept married people sleeping together in a youth hostel! The concept of unisex toilets hadn’t even been thought of.

During the 90s the other members of the EU committed the EU at Ireland’s request not to introduce any legislation relating to gay rights etc and it was agreed with out any major public opposition in any of the states.

The world in the 90s was a different place and Ireland was not nearly as out of step as some would like you to think.

Dickie10

strange days alright but are we now catching up to the way britain was in 1990s ? i think we may be, just social things like child murderers, violence by street teen gangs actually leading to murder. widespread normalised cocaine use. i think its more normalised now than 15 years ago. it brings to bear the question that most countries have a golden era, has ireland had thiers? in 1995-2008? or will we go through it yet? i beleive we probably have had it and future looks bleak. theres a huge social and economic storm coming to ireland that actually could send us back to 1980s ireland. i cant see the EU staying together in 20 years time, i cant see the likes of Pfizer , HP or Intel still being here in 20 years either. what happens then? would it be possible for the like s of irelandto become another version of detroit or pittsburgh?