1995 Divorce referendum 50.3 % voted Yes

Current affairs??

Probably 80ish% yes today

Ah, the nineties when the future looked bright.

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

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.

The summers were good though.

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.

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

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.

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'.

1990.

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.

If 1995 had been a No result (it very nearly was) what effect would that have had on attitudes and culture in subsequent years. If 95 was No and the referendum was held now, result would be Yes but hard to give a percentage without rewriting history.

I watched that RITY for the umpteenth time tonight and the part that stood out was about Playboy magazine finally being uncensored and the head of the Rape Crisis Centre unhappy about it. And this was 1995 when the internet was starting to take off - LOL

Apologies you were correct

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1990/act/32/section/5/enacted/en/html#sec5

I was getting the Rape Acts mixed up

No but they're meant to try to do what Jesus asked and then repent, which means acknowledging that you fell short but you're still willing to try or at least you aren't pretending that you didn't fall short.

Here is the Bible passage where the religious experts tell Jesus that divorce is allowed according to the rules and his response:

Matthew 19 NIV

"3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.”"

Note a couple of things:

A divorce at this time is a woman being "sent away" by her husband (into poverty?). Grim.

Jesus' disciples are massively nonplussed and even soured on marriage altogether from the sounds of it.

Jesus says that a lot of people won't be able to accept it. It's not a "small ask" IOW.

FFFG were in power. Who else was to blame for rape being legal? They and their coalition partners like Labour passed the laws. They allowed legalised rape and the RC gulags.

But fair play to you. Deflect from the collusion with human rights abuses.

Most people would be ashamed of trying to defend that. Most.