How Did The Catholic Church Influence Progressive Ireland

Progressive Ireland: The Relationship with and Influence of The Catholic Church in Modern Day Irish Politics

Throughout Ireland’s history, it seems that there has always been tension regarding religion. However, the term religion became almost synonymous with the term political party early on in Irish history. The traditional purpose of religion is, “to give its adherents knowledge of the afterlife and to educate them in how to obtain it.” (“The Devil, Miracle, and The Afterlife: The Political Sociology of Religion in Northern Ireland”) However, throughout Ireland’s history, there seems to be a common misconception that religion and politics go hand in hand. During the fight for Irish freedom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth

Until 1993, homosexual acts and behavior were illegal in the Republic of Ireland. The Catholic Church is infamously known to not be in support of the gay community, which is often a source of tension among those who fall into that category in highly Catholic countries. However, on the 24th of May in 2015, this very year, the Irish population has shown their support of the homosexual community by voting in a referendum for marriage equality, making same-sex marriage legal across the nation. The vote had a good majority voting in favor of marriage equality (62%) making Ireland the first nation to make marriage equality legal by popular vote. The two sides to the referendum were the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ sides trying to tell the population of Ireland which way they should vote. My internship at the Green Party has allowed me to explore a bit of how the referendum went in Ireland. More liberal parties seemed to be advocating for the ‘Yes’ side of the campaign and often had speeches about how they would be advocating for the equality of marriage for all of Ireland’s citizens. One shocking aspect of it is that many of Ireland’s more known conservative parties came together to support marriage equality. Some of the parties that took a strong stance for the ‘Yes’ side of the marriage equality referendum were, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, The Labour

Many find it even more surprising that Ireland had made marriage equality legal before many other countries like the United States. The United States did follow in the footsteps of Ireland and passed a law making marriage equality legal in all 50 states about a month after the Irish referendum (previously it was a state decision to see if the state should make marriage equality legal and many states including California and New York decided to make it legal). The impact this referendum had on the Irish community as a whole shows the power of the new generation that showed up to vote. Many people voted for the first time during the referendum as they opened up the registration period again for a few months before the referendum took place. I was fortunate enough to see first-hand, the number of people who registered simply in the Dublin Rathdown constituency (where Cllr. Catherine Martin, my supervisor, is running) and the numbers of people who registered just to vote in the referendum was thousands. It will be interesting to look at if the same numbers of young voters vote in the general election in 2016, considering the large turnout of young voters in the referendum. Perhaps, the voter turnout among young people will be higher as they want their representatives to