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Secular Constitution

Atheist Ireland campaigns for a secular Irish Constitution, that treats everybody equally regardless of religion or belief and does not favour or discriminate against either religious people or atheists.

We have already lobbied for and led the campaign for the referendum in 2018 that removed the offence of blasphemy from the Irish constitution. We have also been part of the wider campaigns to remove the bans on divorce and same-sex marriage from the Irish Constitution.

We are still campaigning for the following outcomes:

  • Remove the requirement for the President (Article 12), Judges (34), and members of the Council of State, which includes the Taoiseach and Tanaiste (31), to swear a religious oath in order to take office and replace these with a single neutral declaration that reveals no information about the person’s religious or nonreligious beliefs.
  • Remove the references to all authority coming from the Holy Trinity and ‘our’ obligations to ‘our’ divine Lord Jesus Christ (preamble); powers of government deriving under God from the people (6.1); the homage of public worship being due to Almighty God and the State holding his name in reverence (44.1); and the glory of God (last line).
  • Rewrite the Article on religion to cover freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief (Article 44).
Atheist Ireland campaigns for a secular Irish Constitution, that treats everybody equally regardless of religion or belief and does not favour or discriminate against either religious people or atheists.