In March 2017, in Ennis Co Clare, the then-President-elect of Queen’s University Belfast Students’ Union (QUBSU), Stephen McCrystall, made a stirring speech about the need for students to focus their desire for progressive change on Northern Ireland.
Speaking to hundreds of delegates representing hundreds of thousands of students from both north and south of the border, McCrystall argued at the Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) annual national congress that he was tired of hearing complaints about the backwards policies of world leaders like US President Donald Trump when similar policies were long standing in a state we share so much with. Now students, a group that continues to celebrate our victory for marriage equality, are waking up to just how controversial the DUP’s policies are as the party enters a position of increased power after the UK general election.
Indeed, the relationship between students in Northern Ireland and the South is a close one, manifested in how USI and Britain’s National Union of Students (NUS) come together in the North to form NUS-USI.
Nowhere has this close relationship been more evident in recent years than the drive for marriage equality. In 2015, when the Republic was preparing to vote on the issue, students from Northern Ireland travelled down to help canvass and march. At this year’s Dublin pride, they came to celebrate the strides that have been made here while their Dublin-based counterparts helped make sure that Northern Ireland’s lack of marriage rights was a key issue of the day. Last week, representatives from USI and Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) travelled to the North, adding their voices to the call for same-sex marriage.
Students’ unions are often derided for taking stances that many feel they can’t be influential on, whether it be the situation is Israel and Palestine or the aforementioned problems presented by Trump. Referendums, of course, aren’t necessary in Northern Ireland to introduce marriage equality. The greatest barrier is not winning the population over, so much as navigating power-sharing. This can be problematic for any campaign that appeals to popular support, when the greatest issue is a key component of the state apparatus.
But much like the NUS-USI relationship, students in the North and the South can collaborate. As students here gear up for a referendum on the eighth amendment, they can further the fight for marriage rights in the North by supporting their northern counterparts, attending marches, lobbying the Irish government and Sinn Féin – as the only party operating in both regions – and ensuring the issue doesn’t disappear from the political agenda.
