Scenes from the divorce referendum of 1995 (withj black and white images from the divorce referendum of 1986).
The last great fear-mongering culture war before instant fact-checking.
Including, from top: No campaigner Peter Scully (pic 3) Mick Lally and Roddy Doyle (pic 4), Bono with Nell McCafferty, (pic 5) both images taken in the Right to Remarry campaign office in Dublin; Final pic: Emily O’Reilly with John O’Reilly (no relation) of the anti-divorce campaign at the 1986 referendum count centre in the RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin.
(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)
Are you sure this is 1996? From the fashion in those pictures it looks like 1986! Did we always dress so poorly and do we continue to do so?
Was thinking the same, it looks so much older than that.
Mick Lally (RIP), Roddy Doyle, Bono and Nell McCafferty were hardly ever paragons of fashion now were they? As for the people in the black and white picture, I think they look great. Not a tracksuit or pyjama to offend the eye.
Yeah, but wasn’t colour invented by then ? Just goes to show the levels of poverty in Ireland at the time when there’s not a colour to be seen in those photos of the working class.
Jeez, was Nell McCafferty anti-divorce? And Mick Lally. Well holy god.
Well after that roll in the hay with Fidelma, his card was marked.
+1
They’re unlikely to have been photographed in the Right to Remarry campaign offices if they were anti-divorce.
Thanks, Dave, they’re all from May/June 1995,
Sorry, black and white images are from the divorce referendum of 1986
Is this the part where you send someone out to say
Apologies
Fixed now
Lars Biscuits
I reckon I could take a set of pictures of Dubliners today with almost the exact same clothes (Lally’s jumper aside).
Don’t think they look all that bad but maybe I’m part of the problem.
I never know Bono was a redzer!
That’s all I saw.
I thought it was Denis Pennis
‘A Woman Voting for Divorce is Like a Turkey voting for Christmas’ -Alice Glenn leaflet from the first Divorce Referendum
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/the-alice-glenn-report-may-1986/
Leaflets etc from both Divorce Referendum
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/category/divorce/
These are amazing – thanks for posting.
No divorce ref. in 1996, pics either from 86 or 95.
What was that about “instant fact-checking”?
That was to test us, yeah?
Probably 95 referendum, was when Right to Remarry was at its biggest
Posters in above pic date it as being in the run up to the 1986 referendum. Grand.
what’s a portly jeremy clarkson doing in pic #4?
“Divorce Kills Love” Classic.
Yeah, idiotic as it gets.
Results of that referendum, 50.28% of electorate voting for with 49.72% against. Phew, close call! Shows that every vote counts.
We only have divorce in the country because of the weather on polling day – as I remember, it was a lovely sunny day on the liberal east coast and it rained hard in the conservative west. The other way around and the percentages were close enough to be reversed…
Was god in on it?
No mention of G Ryan on his anniversary?
Yes, Broadsheet. I think a few lines would be appropriate.
Hiyoooo
What’s he celebrating?
That’s Eddie Furey pic 4
Thought it was The Finbarr.
Our local Garda Sergeant canvassed against divorce (as a Fianna Fáiler) door-to-door. Ah Ireland.
Pretty sure those are from 86. I gave out those WP leaflets at the time: Civil Divorce is a Civil Right. We was whipped!
Ok, I’ll say it.
Well holy god.
The No Campaigners were divorced from reality…
5th pic: “…divorce on June 26th”
The 1986 referendum was June 26th, 1995 referendum was in November.
Result:
63.48% No
What, no pictures of the original wife-swapping sodomite begrudger herself, Una Bean Ni Mhathuna?
+1
yeah go on BS, give us a picture
Ah I loved her, she was so bad she was …. well quite terrible really. One of her more widely attributed quotes:
“One can’t plan a family. God alone decides when a child is made (and) the individual … has not the right to murder and that is what the definition of contraception really is”
She got published in the mainstream press too. Dem WERE the days.
The chap on the right in the last photo is probably the least known person who’s had the most affect on your life. John O’Reilly, the “star” of Emily O’Reilly book “Masterminds of the Right”. Still on the committee of the Pro Life Campaign as Secretary: http://prolifecampaign.ie/?page_id=13 (No photo of him, oddly)
P.
Emily O’Reilly anti-divorce? Jesus wept.
No. Emily O’Reilly, journalist, talking to anti-divorce campaigner John O’Reilly.
What’s the “Divorce changes all life-long marriages to 5 years” argument about?
Is that similar to “same-sex marriage makes my marriage non-existent” argument?
Got it in two becoming one and all that guff :)
Had the same thought.
“Oh noes gay marriage will redefine marriage”
Pic 5 deffo from 86.
BT Dubs, whatever happened to yer man Scully
Married one of the Nic Mathunas and heads one of thoses sort of groups now.
Well paid gig.
I think its a mix of photos in the lead up to both referenda in June 1986 and November 1995.”Hello Divocre, Bye bye daddy” is form 1995 I think.
Ugh. Thought to myself: “Who is that handsome fellow chatting with Nell?”
Then read it was Bono.
Now I feel sick and sullied. Ugh.
I find it kind of funny/sad that the “;Hello Divorce, Bye, Bye Daddy” campaigners were right in some ways.
How many divorcee/single fathers have rights over their kids now?
How many divorcee/single fathers were primary caregivers before the divorce?
Love the bit about divorce allowing abusive husbands to “continue their behaviour into a second marriage” – absolutely guys, let the first wife take one for the team and stick with the prick!
Look, for goodness, life is tough…. Ahjaysiz you know that, the ‘The Road Less Travelled’. ‘Life is tough’ that’s the first sentence of it. And it was written by a psychiatrist in 1957.”
But sure we’re all going to end up dead anyway.”
Oh, Blanche, that’s your answer to EVERYTHING!
[flounces off]
Ohhhhh, come back here immediately Dorothy!
Well I never…
Well, hardly ever….
sure, we’ll all be dead soon..
Ah the 1986 divorce referendum, that was a campaign to behold. Well intentioned but shockingly naive people were destroyed in a campaign that started out being about the messiness of ordinary human lives and relationships and ended up with scare stories about gold diggers divding up family farms. Dear God, it was awful stuff.
Glad I was able to vote Yes twice (in 1986 and 1995) even if the first time around it was as part of the only 2 Yes boxes in all the 96 or so from Kerry.
Good man Daniel.
great photos……the anti-divorce lobbyists of the time must be horrified to think that people are still falling in love and getting married in 2013 !
hard to believe this was such a short time ago!
Sur haven’t they the next round of divorce rallies to get ready and frumped up for
The Gay Divorce
‘looking forward to it meself
Like I said before, it beings out the best in us
Look how much Bono feels, everything. He was always a great feeler. Everything affects him more, because of his Jesusness.
OMG! Bono before he had those ridiculous shades tattooed to his mush.
His poxiness never changed though.