Una Mullally: Referendum shows us there is no Middle Ireland, just Ireland

Una Mullally: Referendum shows us there is no Middle Ireland, just Ireland
‘The fiction of Ireland as a conservative, dogmatically Catholic country has been shattered’

May 26, 2018
Una Mullally

The handover period is over. The fiction of Ireland as a conservative, dogmatically Catholic country has been shattered. The past is left back there, and a new legacy is being created. A legacy of compassion, empathy, and maturity - a country taking responsibility for the care and health of women and girls. What happened in the referendum vote was seismic, but more seismic still was the realisation that this vote was reflecting change, not just instigating it. “They listened to us. They actually listened to us,” a young woman said to me, crying, in the RDS on Saturday morning.

Together For Yes ran an excellent campaign, from start to finish. As the No campaign scraped the barrel, the Yes campaign always acted with dignity, with facts to the fore, and never once stooped. Together For Yes built an army around the country. An army of Us. In the RDS, people burst into tears when the Together For Yes bosses came into the room.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/una-mullally-referendum-shows-us-there-is-no-middle-ireland-just-ireland-1.3509905

26.05.2018

pro-choice campaigners

The hateful Eighth: artists at the frontline of Ireland’s abortion rights battle

The hateful Eighth: artists at the frontline of Ireland's abortion rights battle
As campaigning on both sides of Ireland’s abortion debate intensifies ahead of the May referendum, artists in Limerick are taking to the streets

Emine Saner
Thu 12 Apr 2018

On the road to Limerick from the airport, you can see two huge billboards funded by a Christian lobby group. One shows a foetus at 11 weeks’ gestation with the words “one of us”. Another shows a man saying he would never forget what he saw while working in an operating theatre where abortions were taking place (though the poster implies he was a nurse, the hospital revealed he was a porter). It is six weeks until the referendum in Ireland on whether the eighth amendment to the constitution – which essentially gave a foetus the same rights as the woman carrying it – should be repealed, and the campaigning on both sides is intensifying.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/apr/12/the-hateful-eighth-artists-frontline-ireland-abortion-rights-battle-eighth-amendment

Ireland: To understand abortion travel, you have to be there

To understand abortion travel, you have to be there
The ‘Not At Home’ exhibition is an attempt to recreate the experience of the 170,000 Irish women who have travelled abroad for abortions

Róisín Ingle
Aug 28, 2017

Last year theatre makers Grace Dyas and Emma Fraser came to me with a big idea. They had plans to recreate the experience of the just over 170,000 Irish women who over the past few decades have had to travel out of Ireland for safe abortion services. It would be a “durational art installation” open to the public. It would feature video and live performances. There was talk of “soundscapes”. I did not immediately fall in love with the big idea.

Continued at source: Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/to-understand-abortion-travel-you-have-to-be-there-1.3198084