This is part of the jigsaw of national change and history we are all currently part of. And one we can directly influence and win.

Andree Muprhy is a columnist for the Andersonstown News

Irish presidents when I was growing up in 1970s and 80s Dublin were former Fianna Fáilers who had a retirement package in the Aras. I suppose I only remember one – Patrick Hilary who was President from 1976 until 1990. And there was a picture of my grandfather with Eamon De Valera while he had been president. Apart from that photograph the position was utterly irrelevant.

Patrick Hillary greeted the Pope in 1979. He stood at funerals and occasions that meant nothing to a teenager expecting nothing from her country only an education to prepare her for emigration.

When the 1990 presidential election came along, I was on the streets campaigning because an IRA prisoner Dessie Ellis was to be extradited from Port Laoise to England. He was at that point on hunger strike. I was an activist with the energy only young activists have and hounded the likely incoming candidate Brian Lenihan. I was at the UCD hustings when he told the assembled students that emigration was just a fact of Irish life and they had to just accept it. It took me a few minutes to get over my outrage at that statement to refocus and ask him about extradition. In fairness to him he was the only person in a packed lecture theatre to accept this as a legitimate question and he answered it.

A few weeks later Irish history was to change when Brian Lenihan lost the election and Mary Robinson was elected instead.

Mary Robinson’s election to the Presidency was the first sign that Ireland was about to revolt and change. She was to stride into a burgeoning peace process when in 1993, a full year before the IRA called a cessation she went to West Belfast and shook hands publicly with their MP Gerry Adams. She also visited the newly opened Shankill Women’s Centre that day. It was the first time an Irish President took responsibility for expanding the prospects for peace on our island.

Later when interviewed in the US Mary Robinson spoke about the establishment being very much against the handshake – a fact borne out by official state documents released under the 30-year rule – however her approval ratings in the South went through the roof when she did it.

Not only did Mary Robinson change the environment on social issues and the visibility of women and the marginalised, she gave Irish citizens their place in every part of the island. She won that election by beginning a year earlier, going to women’s groups, rural groups, unemployed groups across the 26 counties. She saw those who had not been in the view of the Presidency before. And she won.
Bucking the Fianna Fáil trend didn’t last long as the next Presidential election saw an FF candidate winning. Mary McAleese however was to continue the newly dug route of using the office to embedden peace and contribute to it. Her work in the post Good Friday Agreement period, coming north all of the time, including the most marginalised communities in new programmes, being practical at every level, is not without its critics but it undoubtedly stated that the Irish President could go to every part of this island, be welcomed and reach out a hand of friendship to British citizens from Buckingham Palace to Taughmona estate. And it was on the whole viewed incredibly positively – so much so that Mary AcAleese is one of only two living women to have a bridge named after her on the island – the Mary McAleese Peace bridge at Drogheda. The other is Queen Elizabeth Bridge in Belfast, a few short steps from the Short Strand.

Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese both proved that an Irish President being engaged and contributing to peace north of the border is overwhelmingly supported south of the border.

Irish citizens in the north now expect the Irish President to represent their interests and have an inclusive approach. Look how many of us felt when Michael D Higgins did not come to the 1916 reception in City Hall. It is indicative of what we have come to expect from the role. It is also indicative that the Irish government’s foreign affairs dept expect the same from the presidency – the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, filled in when Michel D did not step up.

This progress and engagement means we are now in a place where we no longer want merely hands of friendship, we want a stake in who the next President is. And the constitutional convention agreed. In 2013. We still wait for the referendum even if it is tantalisingly close.

We have to believe in the difference it will make to our lives if we are to convince those who are the victims of partition living in the south that this matters.

Imagine a Presidential campaign where the votes in Ballymacarrett matter as much as the votes in Ballybough. Imagine if the Shankill Women’s Centre was holding a hustings with candidates rather than hosting tea and sandwiches. That would be transformative. We would have an unprecedented stake in the Aras and who occupies it. It would build common relationships between communities across this entire land.

That would make the Presidency a direct contributor to peace building in an unprecedented way – and that is surely worth supporting.

We are not a diaspora. We are Irish citizens, living in Irish constituencies denied the right to vote since partition. No matter how we want the future arrangements on this island this is something we have a common stake in.

We have had a President and presidential candidates who themselves cannot vote in the election! It is untenable.

But if we are not motivated and agitating why would anyone in the south? It is only by demonstrating that we are activated, agreed and see the benefits that we can pressurise the southern government to get this thing moving. And the southern electorate to say “yes, this is a great idea”.

We should not have let Varadkar off the hook with putting off the bill because of Brexit in the Spring – we definitely cannot this winter. But they will feel no heat unless we create the heat.
There will be an election in the south very soon – and at this rate potentially before this bill is passed – will there be a commitment in all of the parties manifestoes to campaign to ensure this happens this year, and to campaign for a yes vote?

I am tired of lip service to Irish citizens living in the north. Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney have paid more than most. You cannot talk about the nationalist nightmare being over and not take the clear and realisable opportunities to deliver rights to all citizens living on this island as and when those opportunities arise.

Simon Coveney promised in June that this would be taken forward expeditiously so a referendum could happen this autumn. His government has not done it. Is he meeting outrage in his tea and sandwich meetings as a result? Have our community groups and women’s groups and youth groups written and asked “Here, Simon any chance of getting this motoring?”

Between this and the ludicrous nonsense about the border poll this Fine Gael government are actively denying Irish citizens their rights as agreed and promised. Are they are smiling in our faces and stabbing us in the back? Unless we organise and create heat, we will be complicit in this inertia on citizens’ rights.

This referendum will enhance the discussion on peace building and positive community relationships, at a time when it is most needed. It provides the opportunity for a practical expression of our Irish citizenship. This is part of the jigsaw of national change and history we are all currently part of. And one we can directly influence and win.