Repeal – 7 Years Later
It’s 7 years since we Repealed the 8th, but for me, the big day of celebration is the 26th. It was my first time doing tally at a count centre and the absolute overwhelm when the ballots started tumbling out of the boxes – we could see all the hundreds and thousands of “yes” votes. We’d heard the exit polls the night before, but until we saw it in black and white, it didn’t seem real.
Seeing all those yes votes felt like vindication. Vindication for all those people who told us things on the doorsteps – things they had never told anyone. We would come away with the weight of someone else’s burden, ours now to carry for a while. Vindication for the abuse directed towards me and my son when I appeared on TV as a mother of a child with a disability in favour of Repeal. Vindication for the attacks we were subjected to every time we manned a stall.
I remember listening to old hacks on the radio saying there was no appetite in Ireland for this type of debate, while simultaneously watching the hundreds of young people queuing around the block for the newly restocked iconic Repeal jumpers. And then the footage of all the people flying home to vote Yes. It was all so emotionally charged. I’m still not the better for it.
I have much to say about how we were corralled off the streets and into Dublin Castle – led to believe there would be a Marriage Equality style celebration, which never materialised in the end. Or how actually, many people still don’t have access to bodily autonomy or reproductive health care, or how the “hard cases” still have to “travel”. Or how reproductive rights (and trans rights) are being rolled back across the globe.
But that’s for another day. Today is a day for reflection and celebration and to remember that when we come together for the power of good, we can achieve mighty, mighty things.
