By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

There were few countries as Catholic as Ireland, right into the late 20th century.    

The island was conquered by England in the 12th century and ruled from London for the next 800 years. 

As well, following the Reformation, the native Catholic peasantry was dominated by Anglo-Irish landlords. 

Local political power also rested entirely in the hands of the Protestant Ascendancy, while the Catholic majority suffered severe economic privations. 

Even after the partition in 1922, the Ulster Scots-Irish Protestants continued to rule Northern Ireland, and still do.

In reaction, the Irish became ever more devout and steadfast in their Roman Catholic faith. The independent Irish state was virtually controlled by its Catholic hierarchy for many decades.

Eamon de Valera, whose political career spanned over half a century, from 1917 to 1973, ruled the country for long periods of time. 

His Fianna Fail Party believed that the Catholic Church and the family were central to Irish identity. He added clauses to the 1937 Irish constitution that recognized the “special position” of the Catholic Church. It also prohibited divorce.

For decades, legislation opposed by the church was doomed to fail. An ardent Catholic, Eamon de Valera enjoyed a close relationship with the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who helped steer Ireland’s religious life for three decades.

But things seem to be changing. Article 40.3.3, known as the Eighth Amendment, was voted into the Irish constitution by referendum in 1983. 

The amendment states that Ireland “acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

But this May Irish voters will vote on whether to remove or alter that amendment in a new referendum that could give Ireland’s parliament the freedom to legislate on the issue and write more flexible abortion laws. 

The Irish Times recently published an opinion poll that suggested 56 per cent favor repealing the ban and permitting abortion for up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

Ireland has become transformed from a country where 67 percent of voters had approved the abortion ban to one where, in 2015, 62 per cent voted to legalize same-sex marriage.

It had already decriminalized homosexuality in 1992, removed restrictions on the sale of contraceptives in 1993, and legalized divorce in 1996.

Ireland now has its first openly gay and half-Indian prime minister, Leo Varadkar, a physician who is the youngest child of a Hindu Indian doctor and a Catholic Irish nurse. He heads the Fine Gael centre-right party.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in an interview with Varadkar last September, asked him if the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church allowed a more liberal attitude to develop about gay marriage.

“I think the demise of the church and the various scandals that they became involved in, particularly around child abuse, did change mind-sets in Ireland,” he responded.

Diarmuid Martin, the current Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, agrees that the Church enjoys less influence now.

He praised the Eighth Amendment and thought that the coming abortion debate might provide an opportunity for the Church to reconnect with people, even if the amendment were repealed.

“The one way the Church could lose on the abortion debate is to compromise its position,” he stated.