With the referendum on a knife-edge, Irish citizens all over the world will flock home to vote

From Berlin to Toronto, Maastricht to Los Angeles and London, Irish citizens based all over the world will be flocking home this week to vote in what looks set to be a knife-edge abortion referendum.

Cambridge, Oxford, London and Nottingham universities have opened up bursaries to help students fly to Ireland for the historic poll on Friday, while elsewhere voters have got funding from friends and family to make their voice heard.

“I feel so strongly about this. I want my vote counted,” said Amy Fitzgerald, 38, who recently migrated to Canada. Her husband surprised her with a birthday present of a €1,200 return ticket home to vote yes to rid the Irish constitution of a controversial 1983 amendment that in effect made abortion illegal.

“I’ve a friend who had an abortion years ago and she didn’t tell anyone. All my pregnancies were happy ones, but I just do not understand why it’s any of my business or anyone else’s to force women to do what she had to do or that they had go through this on their own and in silence,” she added.

Kieran McNulty, a postgrad student in the London School of Economics, is also booked to go home. “In studying law in Trinity in Dublin, I realised how difficult it was, because of the constitution, to make the law more compassionate.”

Quick guide The Irish abortion referendum Show Hide The Irish abortion referendum Ireland is set to vote on abortion law reform on Friday 25 May. In a the referendum, voters will decide if they want to repeal an article in the republic’s constitution known as the eighth amendment. The amendment, or article 40.3.3 of the constitution, gives unborn foetuses and pregnant mothers an equal right to life – and is, in effect, a ban on abortion. Currently, terminations are allowed only when the life of the mother is at risk, with a penalty of up to 14 years in prison for breaking the law. The government in Dublin has promised to introduce legislation allowing for abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if the vote goes in favour of repeal. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/X03756

Referring to the thousands of women who have to travel to the UK for abortions every year, he added: “We can’t just keep shoving women over to Liverpool. We have to face up to reality and anything I can do to influence the outcome I will do. That’s why I’m going home. If the no campaign won on one vote, I would feel terrible.”

The referendum will be one of the toughest tests faced by the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, since he came to power a year ago. He is under pressure to deliver a decisive yes to remove the near-total abortion ban from the constitution and leave decisions on the matter to parliament, as in the UK. The eighth amendment protects “the right to life of the unborn”, and means legal abortion is impossible in Ireland, even in cases of rape or fatal foetal abnormality.

Two opinion polls released on Sunday showed the yes campaign increasing its lead, appearing to reverse a trend that had suggested the race had tightened in recent weeks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A group of young Irish people at a rally in support of the yes campaign in Wapping, east London. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

But the yes-voting Irish diaspora is taking nothing for granted.

“We’re all a little bit on edge at the moment because the polls are so close. I think every vote is going to count and I feel privileged that in Berlin I’m close enough to get home and I can afford it,” said Sonja Rohan, a 24-year-old postgrad student who is flying back on Thursday.



Emotions are running high among those making the journey.

Sharon Canavan, 28, in Warwickshire, was determined to go home to vote yes after experiencing complications in a pregnancy while in the UK.

“I have three boys. I experienced some complications in my second pregnancy and was hospitalised for eight weeks. The care I received in the UK was second to none. My life was put as the priority.

“I already had a little boy and a husband back home. I was induced early. He was fine, and I was fine. But it made me realise that I don’t want to be in Ireland if it happens again. Or something worse happens,” she said.

OxfordDiplomat (@OxfordDiplomat) Tears poured silently down my face at Oxfords Student Council yst. A small number of Irish students sat in the middle of the room as our motion to fund Irish students to go #HomeToVote was debated & passed.



I'm exhausted, grateful, emotional & proud. Onwards we go.#Repeal8th pic.twitter.com/OVJ2P6tL6A

But it is not just yes voters who have been drawn by the #hometovote campaign.

“The constitutional amendment was a very blunt instrument,” said Seánín Mac Brádaigh, a 27-year-old admin worker in Hampshire, who is making a 14-hour rail and ferry journey back to vote no.

Audrey Bowman (@audreybowman10) I have been waiting for this referendum all my life & am devastated I can’t get #hometovote. For my fellow Irish men & women living abroad who can’t vote in this referendum. For all the Irish women travelling today, this weekend & next week to the UK for abortions #bemyyes pic.twitter.com/RFUn7ewT7E

“There is definitely room for improvement, but I do not support giving complete control of decisions on the protection of unborn children to any government,” he said.

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Others caught up in the excitement about the referendum include older emigrants who have been out of the country for too long - more than 18 months – to vote. They have launched a #BeMyYes campaign urging younger emigrants to make the journey back and vote. Some have even offered to fund younger voters.

“I have been waiting for this referendum all my life & am devastated I can’t get #hometovote,” tweeted Audrey Bowman, now in the Caribbean.

On Thurdsay night, more than 200 people gathered in Wapping, east London, to show support for the yes campaign. On Friday, a similar rally for the no side was organised by the campaign group London Irish United for Life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bláithín Carroll, a yes supporter who set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for a flight home from London. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

One woman who backs the no campaign said she and a group of people in the British capital had got together last February in anticipation of the referendum.

“The perception in the media here is that the #hometovote is all about yes. We believe the unborn should be protected and the [eighth amendment] saved,” said Laoise Ní Dhubhrosa.

Bláithín Carroll, 21, a yes supporter, has had her travel funded by an Irish citizen who had lost his right to vote after living out of Ireland for too long. “I set up a GoFundMe page and somebody was kind enough to give me some cash to get home,” she said.