Cillian Murphy urges men to vote in Ireland's abortion referendum

Cillian MurphyWikimedia Commons

Cillian Murphy has made an impassioned call for men to "come out and support women" by voting in Ireland's referendum on abortion legislation on May 25.

The Peaky Blinders star, 41, recently sat down with Blindboy Boatclub of the Rubberbandits to talk about Ireland's upcoming referendum to repeal the 8th amendment, which currently gives equal rights to mothers and unborn babies.

“Men and women are custodians of this society and we both decide what’s going to happen for our future. I feel that very, very strongly," he said. "And I think, you know, that you can be well-intentioned and say ‘look, it should be for women to decide this’, but we need to go out and support women on this."

While the issue at hand is women's right to choose, he emphasized that men shouldn't stay on the sidelines.

“That’s the really the thing that has hit home the most because I have a lot of friends that are out canvassing and that are working on behalf of various campaigns and then you hear that from men, they support it, but they’re like ‘we don’t want to get involved."

After Blindboy asked Murphy whether he enjoys voting, the actor shared that he actually found the right to vote quite empowering when he was 18.

“I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything, fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself and then you kind of go ‘actually this voting thing is amazing’ because you have a chance to change it, right?”

In his view, the right to vote in a referendum election is the most powerful.

"The thing about a general election is you might just change the numbers in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and maybe get an Independent TD or something but with a referendum you can go in and, if this passes, then the Constitution changes immediately. . . It’s fantastically powerful."

Murphy lives in Ireland with his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, and their two sons Malachy (born in 2005) and Aran (born in 2007).

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