Irish government suffers big constitutional referendum defeats: 'walloped'

Irish voters went to the polls on Friday, where they rejected proposals backed by the prime minister to replace constitutional references to the makeup of a family and a mother’s “duties in the home,” in a major defeat for the government.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had called for the vote, held to coincide with International Women's Day on Friday, as a chance to delete some "very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women."

The results of the vote were announced on Saturday. One proposal would have expanded the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to one that includes other durable relationships. It was rejected by 67.7% to 32.3%, according to Reuters.

A second referendum proposed replacing language involving a woman's duties in the home with a clause recognizing the role of other family members providing care, and it was rejected by 73.9% to 26.1%.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin on Saturday, Prime Minister Varadkar said the voters had given his government "two wallops."

"It was our responsibility to convince a majority of people to vote yes, and we clearly failed to do so."

“Clearly we got it wrong,” he said. “While the old adage is that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, I think when you lose by this kind of margin, there are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them,” according to The Associated Press. 

Opponents argued that the constitutional amendments were poorly worded, leaving voters confused with the choices that some feared would lead to unintended consequences.