Seanad debates

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

An Bille um an gCeathrú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (Comhionannas Pósta) 2015: An Dara Céim - Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

What I am coming across in my contact with people is much concern in particular about the value of motherhood. Mothers and fathers are both important, but there is something about motherhood. Our late great poet, Seamus Heaney, knew something about the importance of mothers. Those who voted for Ireland's favourite poem got a sense of it:



When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:

Cold comforts set between us, things to share

Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head,

Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.
That is what I thought of when the Minister was on the revolution with Maya Angelou, because if the referendum succeeds certain particular children will not get the chance to peel potatoes with their mother. Tragically, it already happens in life, but the Minister will bring about situations where a child will in advance be deprived of that precious special possibility. Just as important is the deprivation of the right of a child.

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