The Irish electorate voted to remove a constitutional ban of about 60 years
standing. In a valid poll of 1.6 million, there were a mere 9,112 votes of a
majority.
The conduct of the referendum is the subject of a constitutional challenge
by a leading anti-divorce campaigner. This is based on a Supreme Cout
decision in the week before the vote that the Government was acting against
the Constitution in funding a pro-divorce advertising campaign. It had
already spent =A3500,000 before the Supreme Court decision, and the challeng=
e
argues that this expenditure on advertising might have influenced at least
the 4,557 voters who could have changed the overall result.
Whether this challenge is successful or not depends on the Courts. Assuming
that it is not, and that the results of the poll stand, it will require
legislation in the Parliament to give effect to the change. The legislation
to give this effect is unlikely to be passed until mid-1996, and the first
divorce to result will probably only happen in 1997.
May I repeat a post to the Medieval History list which may interest members
of this list:
>The "Ban Shenchus" consists of a long list of early (pre-1200) Irish
>women, generally giving their parentage, the names of their husbands, and
>a list of their children.
<snip>
>Another comment that should be made about the data in Ban Shenchus is
>that marriage in early medieval Ireland was much different from what most
>genealogists are used to. In medieval Ireland, divorce and remarriage
>was quite common, and both men and women typically had children by several
>different partners. (Sound familiar? The situation which exists in many
>late twentieth century families is a reasonably good analogy.) This
>situation brings up a pitfall that the genealogist must avoid when
>dealing with this material. If you know that X was a child of Y, and
>that Y was married to Z, you are definitely *not* permitted to conclude
>that X was a child of Z, unless you have a good primary source which says
>so. Of course, one should always be careful about this matter, but this
>is especially true of the Irish material, where having children by more
>than one partner was the rule rather than the exception.
>
>Posted by Stewart Baldwin
>baldwsl@mail.auburn.edu
Paul Murphy
53* 17' N : 06* 07' W
Horas non numero nisi serenas.