Mick Clifford: I swear to God, this can't go on - it's time to axe the presidential oath

Despite the backlash against swearing oaths to 'Almighty God', there are areas of real power in this country where God is still ruling the roost

The wording of the Irish presidential oath requires the president to swear to 'Almighty God' when taking office.

OH for God’s sake. Just as the country is once more in the grip of Covid, word emerged from Strasbourg that God ain’t goin’ nowhere fast.

On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed a legal challenge to the presidential oath, in which the office-holder must swear to serve “in the presence of Almighty God”.

Some prominent people went to Europe in an effort to show Him the door. These included co-leader of the Social Democrats Róisín Shortall, senator David Norris, former Labour party adviser and Irish Examiner columnist Fergus Finlay, Sinn Féin TD John Brady, and Trinity College professor David McConnell.

They took a case to the court on the basis that if any of them were ever elevated to the role of President of Ireland, they could not serve as they couldn’t in good conscience swear an oath to God. This, they claimed, would be an infringement on their human rights.

The response from the court, in executive summary, was: “Don’t worry about it, folks. Paddy Power won’t be handing out odds on any of youse making it to the Áras when Michael D packs in, so your human rights are sorted for now.”

The official version went like this: “The court had previously accepted that applicants might be potential victims in certain circumstances. But in order to claim to be a potential victim, an applicant had to produce reasonable and convincing evidence of the likelihood that a violation affecting them personally would occur, mere suspicion or conjecture was insufficient.”

Independent senator David Norris has ruled himself of running for the presidency in the future. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Two of the litigants have already ruled themselves out of the race to fill the considerable shoes of Michael D.

“Mr McConnell and Mr Norris had expressed no interest in seeking the presidency in the future. The remaining applicants had expressed their interest in very general terms, but suggested that it would be pointless for them to seek election as they could not take up the office if elected,” the court said.

“None of the applicants had sought to establish that they had any realistic prospect of successfully seeking that office with reference to their own particular political circumstances and the requirements of the constitution.”

The litigants, it must be acknowledged, were acting with common sense and in the public interest, as they perceived it. In a secular society, it is a little daft that the head of state must effectively acknowledge that she or he does not have the sole run of Áras An Uachtaráin as they are in “the presence of Almighty God” with whom presumably they share responsibility for the safekeeping of the Irish people.

The present incumbent, for instance, has the cut of a man who would take umbrage at the notion that, as president, he must share the limelight with any living or deified being.

Next stop, according to Ms Shortall on Friday, is a private members’ bill to put the matter to a referendum. If it reaches that far, the campaign and result will be an interesting barometer on how many people have any thoughts at all on this weighty matter.

God being shown the door in the courts

In any event, God is not only being shown the door in the Áras, He is also waiting to be taken away from the courts. The Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 proposes to abolish the oath which currently is sworn by witnesses. There is an option to affirm but usually, the oath is presented to the witness and they need to request the alternative themselves. The new bill will replace that system with a “statement of truth”.

Arguably, the swearing of an oath in court is insulting to those who harbour religious beliefs based on the Bible. Picture: Pexels

Arguably, the swearing of an oath in court is insulting to those who harbour religious beliefs based on the Bible. The practice was instigated centuries ago when the prospect of eternal damnation hung around like a niggly cold and you took your immortal soul in your hands if you lied on the Holy Book. Those days are long gone and again common sense would seem to be arriving with the imminent abolition of the practice.

But why are these issues arising at all? Common sense is not, in many social and governing mores, considered a prerequisite for anything. In the UK, for instance, or the USA, the notion of removing oaths would not be met with major resistance. They are not, it would seem, bothered about this sort of thing.

We have a different history in this country, one where organised religion used its power quite often in a nefarious manner, impacting in a devastating manner on thousands who did not fit neatly into the church’s teachings. 

Today, the residual pain and anger as a result of those crimes on the past have contributed to a backlash against the Catholic church. As a result, some want the State to be properly secular and freed from even any symbolism of those who once ruled. Is it all overkill? Perhaps, but that’s the way with cycles of history.

Secularism still a pipe dream in education

Despite the backlash, there are areas of real power where God is still ruling the roost. Problems over religious control of the new maternity hospital have been well aired, but another area where secularism is still a pipe dream is in education. The church still controls over 90% of primary schools. That despite the apparent rush to free the State from God, there appears to be very little appetite for radical change in this area.

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Last weekend, at the Labour Party conference, education spokesperson Aodhán Ó Riordáin made a big play of pushing to turf religion out of schools. He went as far as to tweet “Let’s get them out”, which indicates he doesn’t just want to reduce the influence of religion on education but eliminate it completely.

He will be waiting a long time for anybody to catch onto that one. For nearly a decade now there has been an active and well-intentioned campaign to reduce the level of religious-run schools in the primary sector.

Despite that, the grip remains and resistance to change has come not just from the church itself but also from parents. The reality is that despite the backlash, despite the campaigns to rid us of oaths and such like, there is still a large constituency out there who remain agnostic about the continuing role of the church in some areas of Irish life.