Matthew Johnston, standing at his doorstep, talks about a business trip to San Francisco next week. He is scheduled to arrive home on May 26th, the day after the referendum. But he tells the canvassers he rearranged the flight to allow him arrive into Dublin before 10pm on May 25th.
When asked why, he says: “I really think it is important to vote in a general sense whatever stance you take.
“For me, we have a young child. Going through labour, I kept thinking if something went wrong and my wife’s life was under threat, what could I do then?”
Johnston’s short exchange with canvassers illustrates how seriously engaged some people are with the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. There is clear evidence on the doorstep that the number of people who are clued into the debate is growing. On a Together for Yes canvass in Cabra, an inner suburb in Dublin Central, what is striking is that views are beginning to harden into Yeses and Nos rather than Don’t knows.
And while, as you would expect in any Dublin suburb, Yeses like those of Johnston dominate, tonight, at least, there is a surprising number that have hardened into Nos. This evening’s canvass along Quarry Road and St Jarlath’s Road could well be an outlier in this constituency, with a slightly older demographic. But it does show the capital does not present entirely fallow ground for those campaigning against repeal of the Eighth.
Dublin Central and Dublin Bay North are probably the two constituencies with the largest number of Together for Yes volunteers. On May bank holiday weekend, on a sweltering day, nearly 200 volunteers dropped pamphlets into every single house in the constituency. That was 25,000 in all.
Say to Yes voters to make sure they go out and vote and tell everyone they know to vote Yes
And here on a equally glorious evening, some 12 canvassers gather outside St Finbarr’s GAA club to go door to door. This is a recanvass, Eddie Conlon says, to see if the undecideds have hardened their views.
Conlon, an academic, was also centrally involved in the 1983 referendum. And all their returns, he informs you, suggest that Dublin Central is voting Yes in the high 60s. They got 67 per cent in this area on their first canvass.
Now, he and fellow convenor, Neasa Hourigan of the Green Party, tell the team there were a lot of “not-ins” the last time and it’s important to get to everybody.
“Say to Yes voters to make sure they go out and vote and tell everyone they know to vote Yes.
“For undecideds you have to open up a conversation. If they believe in any change, then they must support repeal of the Eighth.”
Less dramatic conversations
If you canvass with one side in the campaign, householders who support them tend to be less dramatic. It’s usually a brief conversation and a goodbye. Mother and daughter, Marie and Kelly, tell them they are voting Yes. “All my friends are voting for it,” says Kelly (23). “Women should have a choice.”
A young mother in her 20s, Linsey Keane, is veering No. She does want something for those who are raped or have fatal foetal anomalies but feels that some “people will use it”. She is worried that some will “take advantage of it” and kill “innocent poor babies”.
“I would not do anything like that. I would have a thousand babies,” she says.
I do not know how Leo Varadkar voting for a Yes can sleep at all
And then midway through the canvass, they run into a strings of Nos. “My wife is telling me how to vote and she is voting No,” says one man in his 60s. A teenager hands back a leaflet saying, “My ma is voting No.” A women in her 70s with very strong views berates the Taoiseach and the proposals.
“No matter which way you dress it up, murder is murder,” she says.
“I do not know how Leo Varadkar voting for a Yes can sleep at all.”
Are these outliers? Probably. Conlon points out that the demographic of this area is probably a little older. Like many other fashionable inner Dublin suburbs, there is a mix of a traditional community (families who have been here since the estates were built in the first half of the last century) and new families who have bought in the last decade.
Among the younger families, the disposition is almost wholly Yes. With very few exceptions, any parent in their 20s, 30s or 40s were adamantly Yes.
On a canvass, the reporter naturally veers towards the undecideds or the other side, where all the interesting conversations take place. That might skew the intel a little. But of the doors observed that night it was 21 Yes, 16 No and 10 undecided. It’s probably not representative of a constituency but shows that there are strong pockets of No voters in the capital.
