18-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
The Sunday Independent's view: Ten years on, what unites us as the marriage equality referendum did?
Thousands gathered under blue skies at Dublin Castle that day to celebrate the victory as Ireland became the first country in the world to back by popular vote the right of LGBTQ+ people to marry.
May 2015 was an extraordinary time in other ways too.
The referendum came just days before Prince Charles, as he then was, visited Mullaghmore in Co Sligo where his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA in 1979. He spoke warmly of his reception.
Following on from the historic state visit of the late queen in 2011, also in May, it seemed that Irish-British relations were headed towards a new golden era. Then came Brexit.
The reasons behind the UK's decision to leave the EU the following year were multi-layered, and there is little benefit in raking over the coals again. Everyone knows what happened next.
It was, however, undoubtedly a sign of things to come. Within months, a certain Donald J Trump would be elected US president for the first time. Nothing has felt quite the same since.
It would be easy to blame Brexit and Trump for the fact people have never been more divided, but they are better understood as symptoms of an underlying malaise rather than the cause.
When Irish voters got the chance to go to the ballot box in 2016, they also delivered a stinging blow to the ruling Fine Gael-Labour coalition, just five years after the parties won a historic landslide in the aftermath of the financial crash.
It was a warning Ireland was not immune from rising discontent. Since then, the fracturing of Irish politics has gathered pace. The post-Civil War disposition has broken down and there is still no obvious indication what will replace it.
Tensions around mass migration have only added to those divisions. The culture wars have reached Irish shores and it is difficult now to think of an issue that would bring Irish people together in the same way as same-sex marriage.
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Last year's referendum on emending contentious clauses in the Constitution referring to women in the home became a battleground on which these new grievances were fought out.
Across Europe, meanwhile, populist anti-establishment leaders continue to make sweeping gains, while a majority of voters in England now describe themselves as 'angry' or 'fearful'.
Irish voters are not there yet, but it is by no means certain that what has happened in other countries will not come about here too. Turnout in November's election was pitifully low in working-class areas where disaffection runs highest.
Things can still be turned around. People simply need to believe that working hard will pay off for their families. Fixing the housing crisis is key.
A decade on from that happy day when the vote for same-sex marriage was passed, it might be naive to yearn for a rekindling of such an optimistic, forward-looking mood. The world today is an angrier, nastier place. We have gone from 'Yes We Can' to 'what's the point?' The horizon is also dark with war — the ultimate expression of our growing estrangement from one another.
It remains a worthy desire all the same. Emily Bronte called May 'the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope'. That spirit has never been more needed than in May 2025.
