It was early summer 2018. The country had recently voted 2-1 in favour of allowing abortion access in Ireland, in a landslide and historic referendum victory for the Yes campaign.
We were gathered in a local hotel – the Celbridge for Repeal gang – all of us exhilarated but exhausted from campaigning, still with blisters on our feet and scars on our hearts from going to door to door every night and all of us wondering what was next for our group.
The umbrella group under which we had campaigned – Together for Yes – was winding down and all over the country local groups just like ours were disbanding or rebranding so we put it to the vote.
It was unanimous.
Twenty fists raised, high in the air, voting to continue the work the Repeal campaign had brought us together to do and to widen that work to other areas of injustice. Voting to begin a new chapter.
It seemed like a lifetime but it had only really been a year since the whole thing began in Celbridge, with a summer 2017 public meeting called by a county councillor looking for local people to get involved in a campaign for an upcoming referendum on abortion.
At the time there was no date for this referendum, no heads of bill, no Oireachtas Committee, no real information so we felt our way, learning on the job.
As the weeks rolled on there were coffee mornings and information stalls and leaflet drops. Standing, freezing, at the Castletown Gates handing over what scant information we had, answering questions as best we could.
News of an Oireachtas Committee set up to recommend a course of action to the Government on the back of the recommendations from the Citizens Assembly had us crossing our fingers, wanting to hope but not daring to. And then shaky sighs of relief in December when the Committee recommended holding a referendum to allow abortion access up to 12 weeks.
We started fundraising in earnest then – a raffle at Christmas – saving for the campaigning to come. We printed more leaflets, held monthly and sometimes weekly meetings. Stood, freezing again, on the Dublin Road giving information to shoppers about the Oireachtas Committee recommendations, feeling encouraged when at the end of January the Government voted to accept the Committee recommendations.
There were more meetings, more leaflets, more posters, signs, demonstrations, letters to newspapers and TDs and then finally in March, a date. The date for the referendum was set for May 25 and we were ready. We held a public meeting, got experts in the medical field to speak, we told our stories, we invited the people of Celbridge in and they listened.
We started door to door campaigning, snow on the ground, fingers frozen as we clung to clipboards and took deep breaths before ringing doorbells. We talked. And talked. And talked. We answered questions, gave information, educated. People told us their stories, told us they thought it was time for change, opened their hearts.
We were called murderers. And whores. And baby killing bitches. People laughed in our faces, closed doors and told us they would pray for us.
And every night we put on our high-vis vests emblazoned with the Maser heart and did it all over again.
76.4% Yes in Celbridge, Co. Kildare
The evenings got lighter and longer, we campaigned harder and faster, we dropped leaflets into every door, we got into our cars and campaigned further afield with colleagues in Prosperous and Naas and Athy. We climbed fucking ladders to put up fucking posters.
On the day of the vote we stood on a flyover at the N4 with a banner drop, begging people to vote and to vote Yes. We shouted and cheered and chanted and cried as big strong men driving big strong trucks blared their horns in support and gave the feminist salute out their windows at us.
We stood in the count centre watching the pile of Yes votes grow higher and higher and let out the breath we had been holding for a year. We had done it. The country voted Yes. But the fight wasn’t over.
Which leads us back to that room in that hotel on that summer’s night, with 20 fists raised high in the air and so the Kildare Feminist Network was born. A grassroots intersectional feminist group, committed to equality for all and an end to injustice.
Since we officially formed and started building our network we’ve walked silently in tribute to the Magdalene laundry at the Stand 4 Truth rally and held an information stall to protest the Pope’s visit to Ireland. We’ve marched proudly and chanted loudly in this year’s March for Choice calling for accessible abortion legislation to be introduced now that the referendum has passed and written endless letters to our TDs about the same.
Last month we held candles in remembrance at a vigil for Savita Halappanavar, we’ve attended housing rallies and homelessness meetings and stood in solidarity with victims of rape at protests.
Our next project is to work alongside the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare to ensure our new National Maternity Hospital remains in public ownership.
There are so many things we hope to work on – homelessness, migrant rights, separation of church and state and LGBTQI issues to name just a few, all the while elevating and amplifying the voices of those most affected by those issues. We hope to feature those voices on this blog, while also keeping you up to date on the work we’re doing. We are only starting out, we have a lot to do, a lot to learn and we’re still finding our feet but we’re here and we’re ready to work.
Welcome to the Kildare Feminist Network, tosaíonn an réabhlóid anois.
Written by Karen Mulreid
Twitter: @beatingblog
Blog: beatingmyselfintoadress
Kildare Feminist Network 