Wexford decides. It's Yes!

The word history is often over used.  However there is something different and special about today’s count on the Marriage Equality Referendum in St Joseph’s Centre Wexford.  It’s an old hall that was built by a local priest as a community hall at about the time of the visit of John F Kennedy to Wexford.

When Kennedy ran for election as US President he was anxious to dispel the notion that as a catholic he couldn’t be president for all the people.  In US politics there is the separation of state from church on all levels.  At the same time in Ireland the Catholic church used its influence when it needed to. 

Kennedy said “believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference”

While this might have proved attractive in the US, for any Irish politician to have repeated the same sentiments this side of the Atlantic at that time would have spelt the end of their career.

Kennedy’s ancestors came from a small village called Dunganstown. As I tallied boxes on the marriage referendum today from townlands within a stones throw of the old homestead, my mind couldn’t help but ask what would JFK think today of his descendants?

It was good to see former pupils from many years ago at the count, it can only be positive for local politics.  Few of the faces tallying were there a year ago at the local elections.  Indeed how ironic it is that Eamon Gilmore, who as Labour leader pinpointed this issue 3 years ago resigned exactly a year ago on this weekend following the reversal of the local elections of which I was one of the casualties.  There is the sense today of Wexford moving on from the last lost decade.

Many of Wexford’s villages and towns have voted strongly Yes.  There are interesting trends with a stronger No vote in the south of the county from Rosslare over to Kilmore Quay where the outcome is more balanced.  Riverchapel which is the stomping ground of Labour’s Robbie Ireton was 80 : 20 Yes. Elsewhere especially in Wexford Town where boxes from Scoil Mhuire tallied at about 60:40 in favour of the Yes while Kennedy Park, named after the late president was 70% Yes.  The official result won’t be available until later today but it’s clear from Wexford that people will separate their moral views on religion from their public tolerance of difference.  That can only be positive.  For those of us that canvased against the 8^th Amendment in 1983, Thank God we’ve lived to see this day!