Human rights and arts organisations to celebrate artistic expression
Dublin, 2 April 2019
On 30 April, just after the anniversary of the forced removal of Maser’s repeal the 8th mural at Project Arts Centre, a host of human rights and arts organisations will come together to celebrate free artistic expression and call for an end to censorship in all of its forms. A number of speakers including Una Mullally, Lian Bell and Cian O’Brien will discuss the main obstacles to artists’ freedom of expression today and what can be done to overcome them.
The anchor for the day-long event will be Una Mullally, who herself felt the impact of the censorship of the repeal mural when a discussion of her anthology Repeal the 8th was cancelled by Dublin City Council.
Project Arts Centre Artistic Director, Cian O’Brien, said today:
“From my perspective, little has changed since the censorship issues last year. The situation in Ireland is very complicated; where official bodies are using their power to decide what art is political, how it’s political, and when it’s acceptable. This has serious ramifications for artists, venues, festivals and for society in general.”
Mullally will be joined for the discussion by Lian Bell, campaign director of Waking the Feminists, historian Donal Fallon, broadcaster Evelyn O’Rourke, arts campaigner Angela Dorgan, NCAD professor Declan Long, poet and barrister John O’Donnell SC, and Project Arts Centre’s Cian O’Brien. The speakers will focus on conditions leading to censorship today, including legal issues, tied funding, barriers to participation, and self-censorship. Speakers will also highlight the importance to society of freedom of expression, particularly artistic freedom of expression.
The event will take place from 11am to 4pm over two panels with an intermission discussion featuring exiled Turkish theatre group Be Aware. There will be built-in space for audience input to the discussions.
The Best Banned in the Land event is part of the Dublin: One City One Book festival. It is the result of collaboration between the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Irish Writers Centre, Poetry Ireland, the Writers’ Guild and Project Arts Centre. It is kindly sponsored by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
Dr. Sindy Joyce took over the ICCL twitter account on Woman Human Rights Defender (WHRD) Day on 29 November 2018 as part of the Front Line Defenders #WHRDtakeover. Here we compile her tweets from that day together.
Mincéirs (Irish Travellers) are a traditionally nomadic ethnic minority indigenous to Ireland, distinct from the majority Irish population. Throughout history, varied terminology was used to describe us such as ‘Tinker/Tynkr’, ‘Itinerant’, and ‘Gypsy’. Mincéir is our true name in our own language i.e. Cant/Gammon, Traveller is a term put onto us because of our nomadic identity. The first mention of us is in the 5th century where we are called ‘whitesmiths’ because of our association with tin-smithing. However, our history is largely unrecorded, partly due to our oral tradition and state historical neglect.
Although the vast majority are no longer nomadic, it is still a vital part of identity and culture. Liégeois (1994, p.79) noted:
“whereas a sedentary person retains a sedentary mind-set even when travelling, Gypsies and Travellers, even when not travelling remain nomadic. Even when they stop they are still Travelling People”.
Globally, clashes of culture between nomadic and sedentary populations have a long history (McVeigh 2007 and 2012). As property-less people nomadic groups including Mincéirs had no right to be included within the political or moral structures of European societies. Nomads were and are othered and viewed with suspicion. In most societies today nomadic peoples face extreme discrimination. According to Khazanov (1994), since the dawn of mankind there has been a violent confrontation between two lifestyles: the settled and the nomadic way of life. The battle between Cain, the farmer, and Abel, the herder, is often viewed as an illustration of this violent clash.
The clash between settled and nomadic populations is often at the root of violent conflicts, and time and again at the heart of such confrontation is the issue of the sharing of lands between nomadic and sedentary peoples. In Ireland, anti-nomadic legalisation was introduced by the British during the 1500’s, which penalised and criminalised our nomadic lives and represented us as rogues and criminals, ‘reflecting the bias of the sedentary population’.
1522: King Edward passed an “Acte for Tynkers and Pedlars” which stated
“no person or persons called tynker, pedlar or pety chapman shall wander or go from one towne to another or from place to place out of the towne, parish or village”.
Theories coming from the Enlightenment, European philosophy and social sciences contributed to the domination of nomadic societies which justified the marginalization of nomadic groups including Mincéirs. Fianna Fail’s victory 1932 and the 1930s economic war effected the social status and the living standards of the Irish urban working-class and Mincéirs. The School Attendance Act (1926), Street Trading Act (1926), Housing Act (1931), Road Traffic Act (1933), Litter byelaws (1938), Unemployment Act (1938), all had a social effect on living conditions. Since Mincéirs practically never stayed in an area for long periods of time (nomadic), the School Attendance Act, although we were not forced to accept the Act, had considerable consequences on education in the long run. The Street Trading Act made it difficult for those who relied on trading in markets for employment, as a licence was needed to trade. These factors, along with the growth in the manufacturing market and a decline in labour within the agriculture sector, made it necessary for some Mincéirs to move from rural into urban areas. For some this was perhaps the beginning of settlement as Travellers began to reside in urban areas for sustained periods of time.
Almost immediately after the establishment of the new ‘Irish Free State’ government officials concentrated on State building. Since the land was needed by the State to build upon, more and more of our traditional camping grounds were disrupted by the local gàrda and council. As early as the1930s, conflicts of land usage became the main dispute between us and the sedentary population.
Previous to the new ‘Irish Free State’, Irish people were portrayed as nomads, beggars, ignorant, uneducated, backward, superstitious, drunk and violent people, a discourse which was entirely transferred onto us. Our nomadism was a constant reminder of the past and there was no room for us in a new Ireland, the dominant populace were embarrassed with their past and wanted to show case a new national image that moves away from the old stereotypical image. For that element of the past to be eliminated it was imperative to rid Ireland of nomadism and settlement became a vital operation. As State building and nationalism continued to expand we began to feel the burden of society’s attitude towards us and our nomadic existence. Public housing was at the top of the agenda in social policies and a total of 48,875 public houses were constructed between 1933 and 1943.
Nomadism was frowned upon and attitudes to us got worse. By 1961 numerous local authorities had received many tenancy applications by Mincéirs (before forced settlement) and many families were taken off the list on the basis that the council was not prepared to house families of the ‘itinerant’ class.
Through the inter-war years and for some time after, the trades of Mincéirs were fundamental aspects of the Irish rural economy. Travelling around the countryside with tents and wagons while providing such essential crafts as tin-smithing, horse dealing, chimney-cleaning, selling domestic ware (hawking), carpentry, and seasonal agricultural labour, Mincéirs were a vital part in the rural economy. Rural depopulation increased mobility on the part of the rural community, while the advent of plastic, increased mechanisation, urbanisation, and government policy ensured that our way of life changed profoundly. The economic and social relationship between us and the sedentary population also rapidly declined. In the face of such dramatic changes, we were forced to migrate into more urbanized areas where we were not quite as welcome as we had once been in rural Ireland in previous decades. Perhaps the most significant and immediate impact on us related to the issue of accommodation, and the attendant introduction of many laws and restrictions on camping and mobility as outlined in the 1963 report.
Racism and discrimination in urban areas was rife and most of the sedentary population did not want to live alongside us, there were many protests against us moving into cities and towns, thus the government of Ireland decided to intervene in what they termed the “Traveller Problem”. In the 1960s, American businessmen began to take an interest in Ireland as a location for the commercial expansion of factories and the last thing the Irish government wanted was for them to observe the many camps dotting the countryside upon their arrival here as it would provide an ‘old’ image of Ireland. Authorities soon came up with “a solution”and in 1963 one of the most significant and racist reports ever produced in relation to Ireland’s indigenous community was published.
It was the first Irish government report in relation to us and its commission had no Mincéir representative or had no contact with the community. On the 1st of July, 1960, the inaugural meeting of the commission was held in the Government Buildings, Merrion Street, Dublin. Mr Chares J. Haughey addressed the members of the commission where he stated that
“there could be no ‘final solution’ until itinerant families were absorbed into the general community”.
Many recommendations were published with the report including “to register the whole community, to prohibit tent dwellings where the police could enforce fines and/or prison sentences, to induce them to settle by offering unemployment assistance to those who settle for at least 12 months”. The whole aim of the report was “rehabilitation” and the hope for eventual “absorption” into the sedentary population. Restrictions on our economic activities resulted in many of us living in poverty with no State assistance and, according to government, this poverty was equated to nomadism.
The 1963 Report of the Commission on Itineracy was produced to “enquire into the problems arising from the presence in the country of itinerants in considerable numbers” (p.110). Framing us as a ‘problem’ from the beginning, it codified the State’s ideological opposition to nomadism in a manner which had not previously existed. The majority of the Irish public accepted the report with ignorance and as beneficial for Travellers. For example, a reader’s letter to The Evening Press in 1964 entitled ‘Homes for Itinerants’ read:
“The people of the countryside is to be congratulated on the constructive way in which it has set about helping itinerants. It is only by offering homes and the opportunities of leading a normal life that there is any chance of the itinerants becoming normal members of society”.
So we were not seen as ‘normal members of society’.
Not only were we experiencing the effects of the 1963 report from local authorities who attempted to force us into settlement but, also the ordinary people of Ireland had decided to turn their back on us. As the late 60s and early 70s approached several acts and regulations were produced to assist in the commission’s aim of ‘settlement’, ‘assimilation’ and eventual ‘absorption’. And to aid this aim the operation of caravan sites was introduced in 1968 where Halting sites were introduced, these were only meant to act as temporary to ease to the community into settlement however some families that moved onto these sites never moved off again and some are still in operation today. The first halting site to be built was Labre Park, ironically called after Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, saint for the homeless, beggars and the mentally ill. The government stated that the “provision of these sites should only be the first step of stabilization and absorption”.
At the core of anti-Traveller racism is the assumption that nomadism is not a valid way of life. The State response has been to outlaw it and measures taken have been to “assimilate/absorb” us to stop us from being who we are, the dominant powers viewed as ‘less than’ or ‘inferior’ than the majority population, they viewed us as people that were somehow ‘failed settled people’ or ‘broken’ in that we needed to be ‘fixed’ and ‘aided’ in becoming ‘settled’ which can easily be defined as cultural and ethnic genocide.
Since our identity was viewed as ‘inferior’, the next stage is denial of that identity and the assimilation of us. Assimilation is an institutional response to ethnicity denial, which leads to the issues we see today. From this what is often referred to as “Failure in delivery” of services and resources, is in fact, a successful policy of identity denial and anti-Traveller racism. Research has shown that we are the most discriminated and marginalized people in Ireland. The Millward Brown IMS study 2004 (for the KNOW racism campaign) found the majority population to have negative attitudes towards us with 72% of the population agreeing that they were not willing to accept us among them, 13% agreed that we should have less rights and 23% agreed that our life and culture should be abolished. Farrel and Watt (2001) say “if groups do experience racism in Ireland, it was somehow their own fault arising either from some form of deficiency on their part and/or the failure of such groups, in particular the Traveller community, to allow themselves to be subsumed into Irish society”. As Fanning (2002) puts it,
“the rights of Travellers are called into question within a one-sided communitarianism (linking of rights to responsibilities) which suggests that the dominant community is entitled to exclude Travellers until they demonstrate compliance with the standards and cultural norms of the dominant settled community”.
ICCL says 3-day abortion waiting period not rights-compliant
Dublin, 7 November 2018
As the Joint Oireachtas Committee discusses the proposed three day waiting period for abortion care, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said that the waiting period contained in the proposed legislation does not comply with international human rights standards and that it should be removed. We are also calling for decriminalisation of abortion and for legislation for abortion after twelve weeks in cases where the life or health of the pregnant person is at risk. There should be no qualifications such as “serious” on the risk to health.
A mandatory waiting period imposes an unnecessary restriction on safe access to abortion and also reinforces patriarchal notions of women as incapable of making decisions regarding their own health. It will particularly impact on pregnant people who are in abusive relationships, who live in remote areas, who live in direct provision or who struggle to find the resources to attend two doctors’ appointments. It will reinforce the current situation of inequality which has persisted even since the repeal of the 8th amendment and is thus incompatible with internationally recognised human rights standards. We call for its removal from the proposed legislation.
We further call for the decriminalisation of abortion, particularly given that there is no longer a constitutional impetus for this after the 25 May vote. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment recommended that all criminal sanctions applying to those who access abortion services be lifted and we would concur with this recommendation.
One of the most serious issues with the 8th amendment was that it put doctors in the invidious position of deciding when the risk to the life of the mother became great enough that doctors could intervene to save her. The wording of the General Scheme risks falling foul of the same problem by stating that the risk to the health of the pregnant person must be “serious” before an abortion can be provided. The risk to health must never be qualified. We instead recommend that the wording suggested by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the 8th amendment, “where the life or health of the woman is at risk”, be adopted.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) formed part of Together for Yes, and before that the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment. We signed on to the Coalition’s policy statement on the proposed legislation in March 2018 and we reiterate that commitment now. Further, we restate our support of Lawyers for Choice’s considered statement containing recommendations for amendments to the Bill.
ENDS/
For comment or media queries, including for a copy of the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth statement:
Sinéad Nolan: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie 087 4157162
Filed Under: 2018, Equality, Her Rights, Human Rights, News, Opinion, Press Release Tagged With: Eighth Amendment, equality, Oireachtas Committee, Repeal, reproductive rights, women's rights
ICCL welcomes Amnesty result; calls on Government to amend unclear law
Dublin, 31 July 2018
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) today welcomes the outcome of the legal challenge taken by Amnesty International Ireland against the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPOC). SIPOC has agreed to fully retract its demand for Amnesty to return a grant that Amnesty received in 2015, years before a Referendum on the 8th Amendment was called, from the Open Society Foundation for work on reproductive rights.
Director of ICCL, Liam Herrick, said:
The regulator has many questions to answer, particularly on how it deals with civil society organisations who are not political parties, and how it processes complaints from the public. It is clear that this case came about because of a complaint from an individual who did not agree with Amnesty’s work on reproductive rights. Amnesty have been fully vindicated by this outcome, but the reputational damage which they, and the entire human rights sector, have suffered as a result of this flawed decision is profound. That this should have occurred in advance of a highly contested referendum demonstrates the seriousness of this issue for how we regulate democratic participation.
This is not the only case of its type. Over the past year, ICCL and our colleague organisations have been made aware of several similar cases where small voluntary and community organisations have been the subject of complaints to SIPOC, with often severe effects on their work. We raised our concerns on this matter with SIPOC in August 2017 but did not receive an answer. We subsequently raised the issue with the Department of Housing and Local Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, both of whom adopted a stance supportive of our position. In fact, we were assured by the Tanaiste Simon Coveney that “A key priority for Ireland is to ensure coherence between the promotion and protection of human rights in our foreign policy and our domestic implementation of our international human rights obligations.”
Mr Herrick stated:
This case shows that the law is unworkable and must be changed. ICCL has formed a coalition of organisations who are committed to working with Government to find a better solution for everyone. We are today calling on SIPOC to immediately review its application of the Electoral Act to civil society organisations. We further call on the government to act with urgency in reviewing this deeply flawed legislation.
https://www.iccl.ie/human-rights/civil-society/opinion-allow-foreign-donations-support-activities-irish-civil-society-organisations/
Filed Under: 2018, Civil Society Space, Equality, News, Press Release Tagged With: 8th Amendment, amnesty, civic space, Civil Society Space, Electoral Act, freedom of association, freedom of expression, reproductive rights, sipoc, Standards in Public Office Commission, women's rights
Members’ Report on Referendum to Repeal the 8th
The overwhelming vote of the Irish people on 25 May to repeal the 8th Amendment was a watershed moment for human rights and equality in Ireland. Many of the ICCL membership have played key roles in the long battle against the 8th over the past 35 years. The members and supporters of ICCL also played an important part in ICCL’s work on this issue. ICCL membership fees support our political work, including when we take a position on a referendum question. Below we set out the specific activities which we have undertaken to contribute to this historic moment.
Irish people celebrate the historic yes vote on 25 May
ICCL’s history of campaigning for reproductive rights
The ICCL opposed the 8th Amendment to the Constitution in 1983 on the grounds that it would cause confusion and be unworkable in practice, and that it would not prevent women living in Ireland from needing and seeking abortions. In 1992 the ICCL opposed the referendum proposal to prohibit abortion where a woman’s life was at risk by suicide, and supported the constitutional amendments that guaranteed the freedom to travel and the freedom to impart and obtain information about abortion services abroad. The ICCL published a detailed policy paper in 2001 arguing against a further proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion in cases of suicide risk. The paper criticised the government’s failure to address honestly the needs of the thousands of women who travelled abroad each year for abortion and the discrimination suffered by women and girls who were unable to travel.
In recent years the ICCL has made submissions to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the UN Committee Against Torture calling for the repeal of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, the decriminalisation of abortion, and the introduction of legislation providing for access to abortion in Ireland. The ICCL’s submission to the Citizens’ Assembly in 2016 is available here.
We published a position paper on the 8th Amendment in 2017.
Bongiwe Gumede of South Africa’s Legal Resource Centre addresses the INCLO conference in Dublin
ICCL and the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth
ICCL was a founder member of the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth in 2015 and provided logistical support to the Coalition in its early phases. We have played an active part in the Coalition’s work at all stages. In February 2018, as the Government committed to holding a referendum for repeal the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth joined with the National Women’s Council of Ireland and the Abortion Rights Campaign to form Together For Yes as the campaigning body for the referendum. Together for Yes was launched in March with ICCL as a member of its platform of civil society organisations. ICCL actively participated in the campaign platform and director Liam Herrick spoke at the Cork launch of Together for Yes.
Repeal the Eighth coalition flags on Dublin’s O’Connell Street during the 2017 March for Choice
Funding the Referendum Campaign
Once the proposition for the Referendum was published, the Executive of the ICCL Members Association registered as a Third Party for the period of the Referendum. In line with the requirements of the Electoral Acts, by registering as a Third Party which would campaign in the referendum, the ICCL Members Association was committing that only authorised donations could be used to fund any activities which were aimed at supporting a particular outcome in the referendum. Only ICCL members’ fees were used to fund our campaign activities – these being of an order of €40 per person and all from Irish citizens. By registering the ICCL Members Association as a Third Party (as ICCL has done in previous referendums), we separated our campaign activities from the other non-political work of ICCL, including our charitable work and our work which is funded by trusts and foundations.
The ICCL campaign
ICCL launched our own campaign Her Rights, which focused on the human rights impact of the referendum over the past 35 years. You can find details of the campaign here.
ICCL also joined with members of the legal professions and Lawyers for Choice to work with the sub-group Lawyers for Yes, which acted as the legal arm of the overall Together for Yes Campaign. Together with these groups, ICCL provided legal comment and analysis through the campaign. Liam Herrick provided comment at a press conference on 30 April and spoke at a briefing for members of the Oireachtas on 2 May.
In the final week of the campaign, ICCL hosted a multi-media public event at Smock Alley theatre, entitled Under the 8th, which recalled the history of the 8th from 1983 and celebrated the role of the key leading activists who have led the fight against the amendment – including Pauline Conroy, Justice Catherine McGuinness, Ivana Bacik, Catherine Forde and Máiréad Enright. Read more here.
Activists at ICCL Under the Eighth event
During the course of the referendum, a number of issues emerged about restrictions on artistic freedom of expression, whereby visual artists and writers had events or works censored, restricted or cancelled due to their political content. ICCL led the resistance to these developments. We issued a policy paper on freedom of artistic and political expression and we publicly launched this paper by commissioning our own mural. We unveiled this mural a week before the Referendum, and leading members of the arts community, including poet Paula Meehan and Project Arts Centre’s Cian O’Brien, spoke at the invigorating event in Phibsboro. Read more here.
Orla O’Connor of NWCI and Together for Yes with ICCL’s Liam Herrick, poet Paula Meehan, Project Arts Centre’s Cian O’Brien and artist Giant Sigh
Work for the Future
In the aftermath of the result, ICCL is continuing to work with partner organisations, including the Irish Family Planning Association and the National Women’s Council, to ensure that the legislation is compliant with human rights standards. As we have done since our foundation, ICCL will continue to work for women’s rights including reproductive rights.
We will also shortly launch a project aimed at protecting and widening the space within which civil society can operate. This will aim, amongst other issues, at reform of the Electoral Acts of 2001, at protecting artistic and political freedom of expression during referendum periods, and at reform of the Charities Act so that it includes human rights work as a charitable purpose.
said CELS’ Executive Director and INCLO Co-Chair Gastón Chillier, in his address to Congress ahead of the vote on 13 June. CELS also referred to international human rights jurisprudence and treaties regarding the abortion debate, emphasizing that Argentina is legally obliged to incorporate international standards and instruments already ratified into its legislation.
In solidarity with the work of fellow human rights workers at CELS, Mr. Herrick and the staff of ICCL sent their message of support to decision-makers in Argentina, saying:
“We urge the Argentinian President and Congress to listen to the experiences of women affected by their laws as they consider their next steps in this important debate.”
Argentinians take to the streets in favour of legalising abortion. The feminist movement in Argentina is symbolised by a green bandana.
The Irish government is currently fast-tracking legislation to be introduced in January 2019, which will allow for abortion up to twelve weeks without restriction. In the meantime, the government is investigating ways to facilitate access to abortion for as many as eleven women per day from Ireland still needing to travel abroad for care. For example, doctors may be allowed to refer patients to doctors in the United Kingdom, something which was illegal before.
INCLO believes that women have the right to autonomy over their own bodies, and the State must ensure that this right is respected. Further, it must safeguard against women resorting to clandestine and often unsafe methods to end undesired pregnancies.
ICCL convenes 1983 Anti-Amendment campaigners for ‘Under the 8th’ event
Former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness, Senator Ivana Bacik, and editor of Hot Press magazine Niall Stokes were amongst speakers at an event organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) which brought together people who campaigned against the insertion of the Eighth Amendment into the Constitution in 1983 and which took place at Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre last night.
Speaking at the event, Justice McGuinness said:
“In 1983 the Eighth Amendment was devised by a small group, with the backing of the Church, who convinced the main parties to adopt a legal measure that many of the leading lawyers of the time could see would bring great hardship and uncertainty. The amendment was voted into the Constitution in a febrile environment. This was the era of the Kerry Babies and the death of Ann Lovett, and the 1983 referendum was part of the terrible hypocrisy that accompanied those tragedies. Sadly, we continue to observe this hypocrisy from commentators on the no side who directly opposed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act in 2013 and who now laud it as a panacea to all difficulties which a pregnant woman may face. However, I believe that the Irish people have now seen through the hypocrisy of the Eighth and they will vote on Friday to take back responsibility for abortion and women’s rights in pregnancy.”
Ms. Bacik said:
“A Yes vote on 25th May is vital because our legal experience over 35 years of the 8th Amendment is that there is no other way we can legally provide for terminations of pregnancy on grounds of fatal foetal abnormality; or on grounds of rape or incest; or even where a pregnancy poses a serious risk to a woman’s health. It is long past time that we removed the absolute constitutional prohibition on reform, and allowed our democratically elected legislators to introduce an appropriate legal framework for the regulation of lawful termination of pregnancy.”
Mr Stokes said:
“The only way to free the women of Ireland from this draconian, insulting paternalism is to Repeal the 8th Amendment. The only way to end a situation where sourcing an abortion pill carries the threat of 14 years in prison is to repeal the 8th Amendment. That, I believe, is what good, kind, caring, compassionate people will want to do, and will do, on Friday next.”
Director of the ICCL Liam Herrick said:
“It’s remarkable now to look back at the Anti-Amendment campaign and to realise the prescience of those involved. They claimed that it would do nothing to provide support to women in crisis pregnancies, that it would not eradicate abortion in Ireland, that it would endanger the lives and health of women, and that it could actually kill women. Over the 35 intervening years, those predictions have all come to pass. Unless it is repealed, the Eighth Amendment will continue to cast its long shadow over the lives of women and girls in Ireland.”
Legal experts Catherine Forde BL and Máiréad Enright as well as campaigner Pauline Conroy all spoke about individual cases, watershed moments and the shadow the Eighth has cast over women and girls’ lives for the past thirty-five years. A multimedia exhibition, Women to Blame, which was curated by Therese Caherty and Pauline Conroy, showcased 40 years of struggle for contraception and reproductive rights. Excerpts from Aisling Malone’s new documentary This Is Ireland were shown alongside clips from the archives, including a TV debate between William Binchy and former president Mary Robinson.
Cian O’Brien of Project Arts Centre said: “I’m delighted that the ICCL are engaging with this vital issue which goes to the very core of our society and constitution. Art by its very nature, is indelibly political because it relates to the workings of the society from which it emerges. Project Arts Centre has always placed the vision and freedom of expression of the artist at the centre of our work. We firmly believe there is immeasurable value in creating space for artists and artworks that not only reflect our society, but also directly address and challenge its issues and complexities head on.”
Orla O’Connor of NWCI and Together for Yes with poet Paula Meehan and artist Giant Sigh
Poet Paula Meehan of the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment said: “The artist’s role in the culture is to question, to probe, to articulate what is silenced, to make manifest what is hidden, to reflect the full complexity of the human condition. The painting over of Maser’s mural on the wall of the Project is emblematic of a fear culture. Irish people know that attempting to bury what we find disturbing brings only heartbreak and shame. There is a relationship between the words timid and intimidation; the growing intimidation of venue management and curators bodes ill for the long-term health of the arts in Ireland and has a resonance far beyond the issue of Repeal. Self censorship is as bad for society as active oppression. We must send a clear signal of resistance and stand together for our rights as artists to make manifest the work we need to make in the context of this referendum and for the future.”
Orla O’Connor of Together for Yes wrapped up the event, saying “There are 7 days to go to the vote. It’s time to take a stand and provide care and compassion for women in ireland. Abortion is a reality in Ireland when over 3,000 women travel to the UK and over 3 women per day take abortion pills. The decision that faces us on the 25th May, is do we want another century where women and couples have to endure extreme stress and trauma or do we want regulated, safe abortion where decisions are made between between a woman and her doctor.
A representative of the SUBSET artistic collective spoke about their Grey Area Project and the crowd gathered also heard poetry from spoken word artist Lewis Kenny.
Artist Gearóid Seoighe with ICCL comms officer Sinéad Nolan and ICCL mural ‘Rosaleen the Repealer’