Referendum blues
Irish voters have inflicted a comprehensive and humiliating political defeat on Ireland’s political and NGO class, which overwhelmingly supported proposals presented as “progressive” measures updating the Constitution. Why? Shortly, the changes were badly drafted, unclear as to their purpose, erased women and seemed to reduce the state’s obligations to vulnerable groups, particularly the disabled and their carers. Some background Ireland’s 1937 constitution reflected a conservative Catholic approach to social matters. Article 41.2 referred to a woman’s “life within the home”…