Nineteenth Amendment Of The Constitution Of Ireland
The Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland introduced changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution required by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Prior to 1999, Articles 2 and 3 made the controversial claim that the whole island of Ireland formed one single "national territory". By means of the Nineteenth Amendment, Articles 2 and 3 were changed to an aspiration towards creating a united Ireland by peaceful means.
The Nineteenth Amendment was approved by referendum in 1998, at the same time as the Eighteenth Amendment. However the Government of Ireland did not want the changes to Articles 2 and 3 to be made until it could confirm that other aspects of the Belfast Agreement had been complied with. For this reason the Nineteenth Amendment did not itself alter Articles 2 and 3. Rather it introduced a special mechanism whereby changes to Articles 2 and 3 could be brought about at a future date by a formal declaration made by the Government. That declaration was made in December 1999, whereupon the change in articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution took effect.
The Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1998 was approved by referendum on 22 May 1998 and signed into law on 3 June of the same year. The Government declaration was made on 2 December 1999, bringing the changes to Articles 2 and 3 and certain other parts of the constitution into effect.
Read more about Nineteenth Amendment Of The Constitution Of Ireland: Initial Changes To The Text Made By The Nineteenth Amendment (1998), Overview, Result
Famous quotes containing the words nineteenth, amendment, constitution and/or ireland:
“The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“There is no topic ... more soporific and generally boring than the topic of Ireland as Ireland, as a nation.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)