"...They need to celebrate Ireland as it is, not as people imagine it. Equality is very much the center of who we are in our identity in Ireland," said Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore, speaking yesterday with prominent New York Irish gay community leaders and groups at the Irish Consulate on Park Avenue in NYC.
"This issue of exclusion is not Irish, let's be clear about it. Exclusion is not an Irish thing..... I think that's the message that needs to be driven home."
After a financial debacle more serious than America's, Irish elections last month catapulted Fine Gael into the leadership of Ireland. They replaced Fianna Fail (relegating them to third place status), which had been the largest party in Parliament since 1932. The winds of change are strong according to Gilmore: The new government is committed to a constitutional convention to draw up a new constitution for Ireland in time for the 100th anniversary of 1916 Easter Rebellion. The government plans to introduce a provision for same sex marriage. (Civil Unions are currently available for legal for same-sex and heterosexual couples in Ireland)
"Ireland has changed," said Gilmore. "..For the majority of Irish people being gay is no longer an issue."
While often perceived as having a very conservative approach to sex and gender issues, the Irish actually have a very 'progressive' past: in medieval Ireland, women had the right to divorce their husbands, own property, and figured prominently in Irish legend and history, including Queen Maeve and St. Bridget. The 12th century historian Gerald of Wales records ceremonies for same-sex male unions taking place as early as the 1100's. The 16th C. English Poet Edmund Spencer was appalled by Irish men, writing that they were "a bunch of lascivious bisexuals who offered themselves freely to both women and men." Spencer recommended the extermination of the Irish race but was himself burned out of his famous castle in County Cork.
The imposition of a strict Puritan code under the Elizabethans, Cromwell, and the Victorians; the loss of 1/3 of the population during an Gorta More (the Great Hunger); and the resultant alliance of independence-minded Irish with the Catholic Church against Protestant Ulstermen resulted in a strong social ethos of conservatism in matters of gender and sex - at least on the surface.
But those of us who really know the Irish, know that the real Ireland is emerging once again...
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