Amy Rose Harte | abortion-news.info

How the Yes and No sides won and lost the abortion referendum

Harry McGee: Smiling Savita portraits proclaiming a new reality for Ireland
May 26, 2018

Harry McGee Political Correspondent

In the last few days of the referendum campaign on the Eight Amendment dozens of small posters appeared around Dublin.

The image was of Savita Halappanavar, instantly recognisable from her thick dark hair, wide smile, smiling eyes, and the Bindi dot on the forehead. The message contained one word: Yes. They were striking in their simplicity and directness.

The Savita case (read Kitty Holland’s report from 2012 here) was never too far away from people’s minds during the eight weeks that this extraordinary referendum campaign seeped into Irish public consciousness on doorsteps, in the streets, in the media, or on the airwaves… right up to polling day.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/how-the-yes-and-no-sides-won-and-lost-the-abortion-referendum-1.3509924

Abortion referendum: Motivated Yes versus determined No
‘When it comes down to the rub, it is much closer to 1995 in terms of urban/rural split’

May 4, 2018
Harry McGee

“Get there firstest with the mostest”, was the cardinal rule of US civil war general Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The Yes and No campaigns in the referendum on the Eight campaigns seem to have taken that approach to heart. Both are trying to hit the max on every imaginable metric – posters, volunteers, funding, social media reach, communications and messaging.

Inside two rambling Georgian buildings on either side of the Liffey are the nerve centres of Together for Yes campaign, and the opposing Save the 8th.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum-motivated-yes-versus-determined-no-1.3484536