Irish Examiner view: It can be decades before the impact of reforms are fully appreciated

Two anniversaries we mark this week involved radical change in terms of making divorce available and tackling violence against women

Pope Paul VI expressed his 'deep grief' when Italy's divorce law was passed 

Divorce was once unknown within Catholicism and it’s easy to find people in Ireland who remember those days.

But seismic change began 50 years ago tomorrow, when Italians voted in what the then Cork Examiner described as a “topsy-turvy” referendum on whether to repeal a three-year-old law that allowed divorce.

Confusingly, 37m voters were asked to vote ‘no’ if they were in favour of divorce and ‘yes’ if they were against it.

The vote backed the retention of divorce, which, said our leader writer, would have “far-reaching repercussions on Italian society”.

But these impacts would be on politics rather than on family life, because “while divorce was illegal, the Italians found as many ways of getting around the prohibition as the Irish have found of getting round our anti-contraception laws”.

Italy was, like Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country. Even now, 80% of Italians identify as Catholic, compared to 69% of Irish.

But that famous vote did mark a line whereby followers demonstrated that they were prepared to differentiate between moral and legal leadership.

The pope at that time, Paul VI, expressed “deep grief” when the original enabling legislation— named ‘La Legge Fortuna-Baslini’ after its socialist and liberal co-sponsors — was passed.

On the first day of the referendum, addressing the crowds in St Peter’s Square, he asked them to pray to the Virgin Mary “for the well-being of the family”. The principal political opponent, Amintore Fanfani, a former and future prime minister, said formalising divorce was the first step towards sexual anarchy. Before Italians knew it, he added, there would be such things as homosexual marriage.

Divorce was retained with 59.26% of the vote, while 40.74% opposed.

In Ireland, it was to be two decades before the constitutional ban on divorce was removed by a referendum, in 1995, a wafer-thin majority in favour of change, 50.28% to 49.72%.

Erin Pizzey spoke at an international conference on male victims of domestic abuse in Navan in 2012. Picture: Tom Conachy

Contemporary divorce rates in Ireland rank among the lowest in Europe: 0.6% divorces per 1,000 people compared to a European average of 1.6%. Italy, by comparison, has the fourth-highest divorce rate in Europe.

The same week that Italy was debating the sanctity of marriage, another milestone was being established in the history of women’s advance in a male-dominated society.

Erin Pizzey opened what is credited as the first female domestic abuse shelter in the world. A quarter of the clients at Chiswick Women’s Aid were Irish (Pizzey has an Irish father and an unloving mother and described her childhood as one of cruelty and violence). The campaigner was visiting Dublin for the launch of an equivalent service in the Republic.

She brought with her women and accounts of brutality as case studies to lay before the people of Ireland and made an influential appearance on The Late Late Show.

In those days, general provisions for victims in Ireland were almost unknown and while there have been improvements, the scandal of brutality in relationships has never been obviated.

Women's Aid says one in four women in Ireland who have been in a relationship have been abused by a current or former partner. It recorded 32,299 contacts with the organisation in 2022.

Reforming zeal can deliver great change in societies, and family life lies at the heart of stability. But it can take scores of years for their impacts to be fully felt and appreciated.

Time to keep the guard up 

In his coverage of right-wing opponents of the State, our security correspondent, Cormac O’Keeffe pointed to the pernicious influence of overseas commentators in raising tensions around immigration and asylum issues.

The Sky News Data and Forensics Unit found that 56% of the posts on X regarding the Newtownmountkennedy march last month, originated from the US. Just over 20% were from Ireland and 10% from Britain.

It’s not far-fetched to appreciate what United States citizens might make of this level of interference in their public discourse from overseas interests and there is no reason why Irish opinion should be any more tolerant.

This level of activity is all of a piece with an investigation from Wired magazine which found that, after lowering their profile following the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, extremist militias are now co-ordinating more than 100 Facebook groups and ramping up their rhetoric.

Facebook bans paramilitary organisations but investigative journalists pointed to activity from groups such as The Three Percenters, The Free American Army, and others, seeking to recruit what they call “active patriots”.

Facebook’s content moderation has been under pressure in the last year with the termination of some staff contracts and suggestions that Meta’s Oversight Board is also to be scaled back.

Political campaigns raise tensions and can attract some people whose grasp on reality can leave something to be desired. This is a time for all believers in democracy to keep up their guards.

The Boss won't surrender to the ravages of time 

There’s a chapter in Bruce Springsteen’s self-penned biography Born to Run (you may have heard that phrase before) where he speculates about his Irish ancestry.

His great-great-grandmother, Anne Garrity, left Ireland five years after the Famine aged 14, with two sisters, aged 12 and 10, and settled in Freehold, New Jersey. Springsteen grew up there and in nearby Long Branch.

“We are the afflicted,” he writes. “A lot of trouble came in the blood of my people who came from the Emerald Isle.”

A sense of Irishness runs through his work and he writes of his “first stadium show” at Slane Castle in 1985, “the largest crowd I’d ever seen”. And one that made him so anxious about safety that he debated cancelling the rest of his tour.

Despite his misgivings, he didn’t. And nearly 40 years later, we have one more chance to see arguably the greatest live performer the rock era has ever witnessed returning for the second leg of his world tour at the age of 74, after his initial itinerary was disrupted by illness.

The Boss and the E Street Band kicked off the Irish leg at Boucher Fields in Belfast on Thursday, opening their 28-song set with ‘No Surrender’. They will rock up at Kilkenny’s Nowlan Park tomorrow.

Then there’s his sell-out return to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Thursday, 11 years since Cork last saw him, followed by Croke Park next Sunday.

Back in 1985, tickets for Slane were £15, the equivalent of around €50 now, but the prices for all this month’s Irish gigs are €168.80/€153.80 for seats and €143.80 for standing. However, the Republic was not exposed to a sales technique that has been used increasingly in the US — surge pricing. This means that tickets are valued according to demand, an approach with which airlines and hotels are well versed. It will be coming to a venue near you sooner or later with lots of justifications about “market value”.

Springsteen has been closing his tour with an acoustic version of ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’, a 2020 song from his album Letter to You, which has valedictory themes of parting and reunion. For many people, whether they can get to his shows, or not, those dreams began in the 1970s. He has a talent born and honed in pre-internet days when good promotion consisted of a fancy video on MTV.

Springsteen is a septuagenarian, as are Eric Clapton and Neil Young. Mick Jagger and Roger Waters are 80. All still performing. Springsteen will put in a minimum shift of three hours. Who said rock’n’roll is bad for you?