A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
Later this year, I will be able to vote for a new Irish President. My brother in Belfast can stand to become President, but cannot vote in the election. My daughters, who lived most of their lives, were educated, attended university, and worked in Dublin, but recently moved abroad also cannot vote in the election. Yet we are all Irish Citizens and described in the Constitution as part of the Irish nation.
US and Canadian citizens living in Ireland can vote in their respective domestic elections. A right denied to Irish citizens living in the north of Ireland or abroad.
This is not a new revelation. The denial of rights was written into Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Irish Constitution) in 1937. This was 15 years after the imposition of partition. The constitution provided for citizenship to all born on the island, but not the means to play a valued role in the political life of the nation. It was written with the full knowledge of the extent of immigration, a deliberate exclusion of a section of our nation and citizens.
For the parties in Dublin; Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Labour, which did not organise in the North, the denial of voting rights was self-serving.
Platitudes could be paid to Irish citizens in the North, but God (or rather De Valera) forbid that they would ever be given a voice in the life of the nation. It has always struck me that Irish Citizens in the North and our exiled children across the globe laid waste to the myth of a successful nation state. We were a reminder of a nation divided by Britain, and of successive Irish governments that could not provide for generations who were forced into immigration.
In November 2013, the Convention on the Constitution recommended that citizens resident outside the State should have the right to vote in Presidential elections. It looked like this historic injustice would be addressed. Enda Kenny, the then Fine Gael Taoiseach, speaking in Philadelphia, promised a referendum to bring the Constitution into line with the recommendation of the Convention. This was too late for the 2018 Presidential Election, but it was promised that it would be in effect for the 2025 election. And then…nothing.
Earlier this year, Sinn FĂ©in brought a motion to the Stormont Assembly (the parliament in the North of Ireland) to support the extension of voting rights in the Irish Presidential election to Irish Citizens living in that jurisdiction. The motion was passed by the Assembly.
This week in the Dáil (Irish Parliament), Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald pushed for moving the relevant legislation on voting rights to the next stage of Committee scrutiny and proposed a motion calling for the implementation of the 2013 proposals. The Government of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael did not oppose either proposal. However, there is a difference between not opposing and actively progressing.
The dead hand of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil cannot be allowed to continue to undermine the voting rights of Irish Citizens in the North or living abroad. Rights that are extended to citizens of other nations.
Have a great weekend.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
