By a happy chance, earlier this week, I met one of what this newspaper has called the “Faceless Sixty-Six”: the citizen members of the Government’s constitutional convention, randomly chosen last year to represent the population at large.
And as I now realise, our charge of facelessness – in a 2012 Editorial criticising both the group’s anonymity and the constraints imposed on it – was a slight overstatement. In fact, the names and general locations of all 66 are on the convention website (constitution.ie). Only full addresses are withheld, lest the members be exposed to undue lobbying.
They remain sufficiently anonymous, however, that until a few days ago it had escaped me I was related to one of them, through marriage. But it turns out that this was a reflection on me – I should visit my relatives more often – because, apparently, the convention and its workings have been the talk of the extended family for the past year.
A mild-mannered man with no previous political convictions I know of, my in-law seems to have taken to constitutional reform like a duck to a lake. He hasn’t missed a meeting so far, sacrificing seven of his weekends this year in the process.
Moreover, his unpaid enthusiasm has infected others. Every plenary meeting of the convention has been preceded by a get-together of family and friends, who debate all the issues in advance. There are often a wide range of opinions on offer. What those attending all share (apart from bottles of wine) is a love of democracy.
Involvement in the convention has been one of the best experiences of my relative’s life, he tells me. And I’m not surprised. I grew up in a political household myself, so I understand how addictive this sort of thing can be.
Many years ago, at a vulnerable age, I was even offered Fianna Fáil membership. Thank God, I had the strength to say no. But I fear that, for my in-law, the convention will prove a gateway drug, and that when his involvement in it ends, as it must shortly, withdrawal symptoms will tempt him to run for election somewhere.
In the meantime, prior to the last phase of its work, the body has been holding a series of regional public meetings. And it was through him that I was asked to say a few words at the opening of one such event in Monaghan the other night.
This was both interesting and educational. Not many people – only 30 – attended. But of those, almost all spoke, and spoke well (including a group of deaf people who, of course, did the talking with their hands and had it translated for the rest of us).
And to me at least, the priorities on display were surprising. For one thing, despite the location, the Border featured hardly at all. In fact, insofar as the subject of only our rivers running free came up, it was in the context of the night’s overwhelmingly dominant theme: the environment.
Speakers on this subject ranged from a trainer of "dressage horses", who also owned a "40-acre lake" in Meath, to a Cavanman who quoted poetry in defence of corncrakes, bats, and hedgehogs. All argued that environmental protection should be written into Bunreacht na hÉireann.
This has been a recurring theme at the public meetings, I gather. So has another feature of the Monaghan event that seemed unusual. Not only were issues touching on religious belief a distant second to the environment, as judged by the number of speakers, but even under that heading, the pro-religion lobby was a minority. It was three-one to the atheists/agnostics in Monaghan (the sole, overtly religious contribution came from Armagh). I gather this has also been the pattern elsewhere.
On this, as on all subjects, however, debate was completely civil: another constant at the public meetings. In Galway, apparently, a visiting American was astonished at the restraint with which diametrically opposed views were exchanged. The joke was that at similar events in the US, gunshots might be exchanged too.
Critics may counter that the tranquillity of proceedings reflects the limitations of the convention’s remit. But in some ways, at least, it has been already been more radical than was expected.
Asked to consider a voting age of 17, for example, the convention went further and recommended 16. At an informal meeting of my own household recently, this was strongly supported by one female member, now 15-and-a-half; whereas, speaking on behalf of grumpy old men everywhere, her father predicted it would lead to anarchy. In any case, the convention has spoken on the matter, and the Government has agreed to put it to a referendum.
fmcnally@irishtimes.com