Several years ago, when social media was perhaps a more jovial place, a meme caught fire with Irish users because it perfectly encapsulated the power of Irish mammies in setting the world to right and not putting up with any nonsense.
There is no force, as everyone knows, more powerful than Irish women when they’re primed for battle, and yesterday – to the absolute dismay of the government, most of the so-called opposition, and the entire array of establishment NGOs and media – they unleashed their ultimate weapon of Ma’s Destruction: the landslide No vote.
It was an absolute walloping for the government: a 74% NO to plans to remove the only mention of mother from the Irish Constitution, and a massive rebuff to the presumption that women find it ‘sexist’ and ‘offensive’ when our laws acknowledge that our role in having and rearing our children is the most important job on earth.
In fact, the so-called “Care Amendment” was beaten by the highest ever NO vote of the 38 Referendums which have been proposed to Bunreacht na hÉireann. So much for the National Women’s Council, who engaged in the worst and most persistent kind of misinformation during the campaign, representing Irish women.
You can almost image the wooden spoon descending: get your hands off our constitutional rights. and our right to mother our children. and our right to be respected and protected in doing so. What the hell made you think you know better than mothers when it comes to what mothers actually want?
If the bewildered members of the Cabinet are still mystified as to why their proposals were rejected (and hiding behind the pretty contemptuous excuse that voters were just too confused and dumb to understand the complexities of Roderic O’Gorman’s amendments) then they could start by examining the results of the Amárach poll which found a huge majority of Irish women want to be at home with their children when they are small.
That research poll showed that a whopping 69% of Irish mothers would prefer to be at home with their children rather than go out to work if money was no issue – with 70% of mothers saying they do not feel valued by society for their work as mothers.
Of course we don’t feel valued. For decades, we Irish women, in common with women everywhere, have had to endure listening to the insulting, patronising presumption that having and raising children should be our lowest priority, and that being at home with small babies meant our brains and abilities were not only wasted but turned to sludge.
It led to a culture where mothers, who should be raised up and praised and idolised for their irreplaceable, essential, life-giving heroism, were instead often treated with open contempt and derided.
If you think I’m exaggerating, RTÉ once made a documentary which asked mothers at home if they felt “humiliated” by not earning a wage, while the presenter also railed in a Sunday Independent column that no mother had the right to be a “kept woman”, and sneered that their most urgent decision was “the choice between coffee now or after the hoovering”.
This ignorant attitude is perhaps more to be pitied than censured. It often comes from a failure to understand that motherhood is a sacred thing, a covenant that only women can enter into and fully experience, as exhilarating as it is exhausting, as potent as it is powerful.
Yet, the state long ago decided that women should be forced out of the home – going as far as to bring in a new tax law, tax individualisation, which penalised families where a parent was at home raising the children.
And the NGOs supposedly representing women which successive governments decided should be stuffed full of our tax euros obviously didn’t value mothers – the 2022 annual report from the National Women’s Council doesn’t mention the word ‘mother’ once.
As I wrote before the vote the discourse around mothers at home raising children and securing society’s future is generally disrespectful and ignorant and often downright toxic.
Well, yesterday, the women of Ireland gave their answer. The hands that rocked the cradle rocked the establishment with a mighty roar. There would be no removal of mothers from the Irish constitution, and no erasure of our right to raise our children at home from the nation’s foundational document.
It was the best Mothers Day present ever as Maria Steen said yesterday: and a recognition and an appreciation of the unique and often unseen and unsung work that women do in holding not just the family but the entire world together.
"It's just the best Mother's Day present ever": Campaigner Maria Steen has hailed the win of the 'No' side in #Referendum2024 as a "victory for common sense."
Laoise de Brún of The Countess says the result shows a disconnect between the public and the "NGO Industrial Complex". pic.twitter.com/CCctaq5TIQ
— gript (@griptmedia) March 9, 2024
The voices of women – from the feisty campaigners in Women and Mothers United who were heard everywhere on local radio; to those in the Countess who took their message to the streets and the airwaves; the Natural Women’s Council’s grassroots efforts raising up a network of volunteers; the leadership of Senator Sharon Keogan, and many more – were heard by voters.
Women refused to be misrepresented any longer by the empty slogans of a political establishment who have failed mothers and families and sought to put the empty demands of corporatism above our needs and ambitions and desires.
Of course, there were also other very important factors which culminated in a NoNo vote, including immigration; the desire of people with disabilities and those needing care to have their needs met; and a strong instinct to uphold the importance of marriage.
But today, my sisters and I will bring my own splendid mother, who fought all her life for the work of women to be recognised in the fullest sense, and who is one of a generation of women who were kind and fierce and brave and talented and strong, out to celebrate Mothers’ Day.
And we’ll raise a glass to the Irish people who did us proud yesterday. Mná na hÉireann abú.
The Natural Women's Council, LFJI, Irish Education Alliance and Parents Rights Alliance extend our heartfelt gratitude to the people of Ireland for playing a fundamental role in our grassroots #VoteNoNo campaign. Power of the people is stronger than the people in power! pic.twitter.com/ex9W1Ivd8p
— Founder, Natural Women’s Council (@Jklunden) March 9, 2024
Whatever happens today, we want to thank everyone for supporting our #VoteNoNo campaign the last 8 weeks, we especially want to thank our incredible canvassers who spent every weekend out there speaking to people and informing them about the referendums. This was a grassroots… pic.twitter.com/QlikCT5eMo
— The Countess (@TheCountessIE) March 9, 2024
The people of Ireland have spoken and given this government and the parties in opposition a walloping.
Women do not want to be reduced to non-gender language.
I, for one, did not view the erasure of the words 'woman or mother' as something worthy of being progressed. Thankfully… pic.twitter.com/bT41cc9IEI— Senator Sharon Keogan (@SenatorKeogan) March 9, 2024