Letter in The Irish Times Today

Sir, – After her failed attempt to secure a nomination in the forthcoming presidential election, Maria Steen remarked “rarely has the political consensus seemed more oppressive or detached from the wishes and desires of the public”. Really?

For most of the 20th century the political consensus in this jurisdiction was an everpresent oppressive reality and Catholic orthodoxy shaped the Constitution and the legal framework to the detriment of many.

Think of the large numbers trapped in loveless marriages because of the ban on divorce. Or the many gay people whose actions were criminalised until the law was changed in 1993. Or the lack of effective family planning. Or women forced to go abroad for an abortion. Or the women whose lives were ruined by the procedure of symphysiotomy. The list could go on.

Whatever its faults, and there are many, Ireland has, over the past 40 years, become a better and more tolerant place, and, contrary to Ms Steen’s contention, the current political consensus reflects the views and desires of the majority. – Yours, etc,

JOE KEHOE,

Celbridge,
Co Kildare

I'm sure there are many counter-arguments that spring to mind for any reader of this blog. However, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Kehoe's view of Irish history is the dominant one today. (I'll admit I had to look up "symphysiotomy".)

I think he's also right that the "current political consensus reflects the views and desires of the majority", at least as far as social conservatism goes. If we witness a radical challenge to the political consensus any time soon, it will probably come about on the issue of immigration and the wilder excesses of political correctness (especially in relation to gender). Whether full-blown social conservatism will piggy-back on such a reaction is another matter. In all honesty I'm doubtful this will happen. The Reform Party in the UK uses some socially conservative rhetoric. But so did the Tories. We'll see how it translates to reality, should they come to power.

I do think Catholicism is making a slow revival in Ireland-- for instance, seminarian numbers are very slightly rising after having flatlined for a few years-- but it really is going to be slow. 

Mr. Kehoe dates the advent of a "better and more tolerant" Ireland to the last forty years. I'm guessing he's thinking of everything that came after the 1983 referendum that introduced a Constitutional ban on abortion, by a majority similar to that which removed it in 2018. So the period of "Catholic orthodoxy" he describes lasted from independence in 1921 to 1983. 

Few people alive today actually experienced most of that period. The political consensus was then as strong in favour of social conservatism and Catholic ethics as it is against it today. Women had votes all that time. Gay people had votes. People in difficult marriages had votes. Yet many of them must have repeatedly voted for the political consensus that Mr. Kehoe considers a self-evidently bad thing. Why?