Ten years ago this week, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote. More than 6,000 same-sex couples have been married in the decade since. Here, 10 of them share their wedding stories, reflecting on how the referendum changed their lives, and Ireland, and their concerns over a regression in attitudes towards LGBTQ+ rights.
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘It reinvigorated our democracy in a way we had never seen before’
Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan
Independent politician and former government minister Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan first met in 1981 in Boston College in Massachusetts, where they were both theology doctoral students.
“The programme only took two people that year,” says Katherine, recalling the fated first encounter with her late wife. “We were a little nervous that it was just ourselves initially, but that dissipated pretty quickly.”
The pair instantly hit it off and became a couple, and in October 1982 they held an intimate life-partnership ceremony to celebrate their love and commitment to each other.
Katherine “never ever anticipated living or working or being in a partnership with anybody other than an American in America”, but she gladly followed Ann Louise back to Ireland, where they built a life together – Ann Louise as a theologian and Katherine as a lecturer, chief executive of the National Women’s Council, and later an independent politician.
Speaking of the anxiety they experienced living and working in Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s – homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1993 – Katherine says: “There was always that fear that if we became public Ann Louise would lose her job.” Ann Louise taught at St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra, “a college managed by the Archbishop of Dublin, and she did suffer at different times because of that”.
In 2003, Katherine and Ann Louise’s relationship was legally recognised when they married at “a beautiful small gathering” in Vancouver in Canada. The couple then “prepared to take on the State, the Irish government”, so their Canadian marriage could be recognised here as well. Their legal battle was a significant catalyst for the Irish campaign for marriage equality.
“When we got the judgment in 2006 that we couldn’t get our Canadian marriage recognised because it was against the Constitution, it sparked an even greater momentum,” Katherine says. “This was holy Ireland. During this period too, some of the authority of the church was being challenged because of all the forms of institutional abuse, especially against children. So people were starting to step back and think, ‘we need to be critical Catholics and make some decisions on our own’.”
Katherine believes the Yes campaign’s success was thanks to the “radical spirit” of the Irish people.
“I don’t want to romanticise this, but I think there’s something extraordinary about the culture of the people here. Because of that lengthy oppression and willingness to say no and resist and find creativity and be kind, in spite of it all, and to be radical. I just think this tapped into all that.
“It reinvigorated our democracy in a way we had never seen before,” she adds, remembering the striking displays of “solidarity across differences, across political parties, across generations” and “also that image of citizens that know that they have the power” as the Yes result was announced at Dublin Castle on Saturday May 23rd, 2015.
Katherine and Ann Louise’s Irish wedding took place in Dublin in January 2016. “She looked remarkably beautiful and was so strong,” says Katherine of Ann Louise, who was recovering from a brain haemorrhage at the time. Ann Louise died in June 2017, following a short illness.
The striking red and black dresses they married in were subsequently donated by Katherine to the National Museum of Ireland, and have been displayed at Collins Barracks as symbols of the historic referendum.
There are “several outstanding issues that make it difficult to be fully free or equal in Ireland,” says Katherine now, reflecting on progress on LGBTQ+ rights 10 years on from the referendum.
“The marriage equality win went a long way to normalise the identities of lesbian and gay people. Obviously we have another journey in relation to trans and non-binary [people] which should flow from the former, but doesn’t necessarily. There are challenges in terms of mental health and wellbeing. The terrible, non-existing state of trans healthcare, especially for young people. The fact that not all ‘rainbow families’ are able to get both parents recognised in law.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘If the campaign was run today, I don’t think we’d win’
Buzz O’Neill-Maxwell and Peter Maxwell-O’Neill
Buzz O’Neill met Peter Maxwell online 18 years ago. Buzz recalls his first date with Peter – “a pint in The Norseman, and then dinner across in Pintxo’s across the way in Crown Alley” – in Dublin’s Temple Bar. The couple moved in together four months later and now live with their German shepherd Eric in Amsterdam, where Peter works for Heineken. Buzz is a club promoter, and has been involved with campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights in Ireland from “day one”.
“When you say you’re from Ireland and you’re in a gay bar, anywhere in the world, the first thing people say is, ‘That was the first place to vote same-sex marriage in,’” says Buzz, referencing a recent encounter with someone he met while visiting Cape Town in South Africa.
“It wasn’t just the stroke of a pen by a progressive government, it was the actual people of Ireland. We had to go out there for months and months and months to get it across the line.”
PantiBar on Capel Street was a hub of joy on that May weekend in 2015, and a place Buzz “just didn’t want to leave”. “I wanted to be there, more than Dublin Castle with all the celebs. A load of my friends came in, gay and straight, and I just broke down,” he recalls, welling up at the memory.
On a family holiday celebrating his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary that year, Buzz proposed to Peter during a day trip to Florence.
I guess we were activists in the soft sense of the word during the marriage equality campaign. We were part of all the networks that popped up. We went around the country knocking on doors
— Etain Kidney
A few months later, on December 28th, 2015, they married in the Dublin Unitarian Church. The reception took place in The Grand Hotel in Malahide, where Buzz’s parents had celebrated their own wedding 50 years previously.
“Because we were the first same-sex couple to get married in the Unitarian Church, our solemniser was emotional, to say the least,” laughs Buzz. “So emotional, that she forgot half of the actual written service.
“You can go in there now and view that registry, which me and Peter have done a few times, and it’s hundreds and hundreds of marriages going back hundreds of years and then you just see two boys’ names.”
He is concerned at the “backwards” shift in attitudes towards LGBTQ+ rights in recent years. “If the campaign was run today, I don’t think we’d win.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘We famously have been married three times’
Etain Kidney and Michelle Walls
Etain Kidney and Michelle Walls met at The George in Dublin 20 years ago. “We famously have been married three times, and every one was as good as the last,” says Etain. “In 2012, Michelle asked me to marry her, and I have such a God complex that I then asked her back.”
The couple were joined by close family and friends in the small registry office on Grand Canal Street in Dublin and became civil partners in April 2014.
“Then we went to Spain and had a big wedding over there,” Etain says. Around 150 guests were present at their “official wedding day” in the sunny hills of the Costa del Sol.
Almost a year after the marriage equality referendum, Etain and Michelle’s story came full circle and they tied the knot once more on home turf, in the same registry office where they had their first ceremony.
Etain works in education and Michelle in car rental, and they live together in Dublin city centre with their sons Tadhg (8) and Bobby (5).
Remembering the mix of emotions on results day, Etain describes how she “just burst out crying” at the count centre “and then realised how exhausted and scared I had been”.
“I guess we were activists in the soft sense of the word during the marriage equality campaign,” she says. “We were part of all the networks that popped up. We went around the country knocking on doors.”
Ten years on, the euphoria of the campaign’s success is “a real juxtaposition” with reality.
“It’s quite poignant now to reflect on marriage equality 10 years later, when we got such resounding support from the country, to be a little bit scared to walk down the street again,” says Etain. “In the same way we were brave and bold back then, we need to all be brave and bold again. We need to use this anniversary of marriage equality to remind people that it’s a fight, that we still need to protest, and that freedom doesn’t happen by accident.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘People do all sorts of mental gymnastics to accommodate the idea of two women married with children’
Linda Cullen and Feargha Ní Bhroin
Linda Cullen and Feargha Ní Bhroin live in Blackrock in Dublin with their 15-year-old twin daughters Tess and Rosa Cullen-Byrne. The couple have been together for 20 years. “We discussed having kids very early on,” says Linda, a TV producer and chief executive of production company Coco Content. She directed The 34th, a documentary telling the story of marriage equality in Ireland. Feargha is a social justice researcher.
The couple became civil partners in 2012, and joined the board of Marriage Equality years in advance of the referendum campaign.
I have always loved Ireland. And yet, I did wonder, gosh if it’s a no, can we actually stay?
— Linda Cullen
“One of the main drivers was to seek protections for our children. And we knew marriage would have to come first. It shouldn’t have to, but we knew it would, and it did,” reflects Feargha, highlighting that “there are families without those protections still”.
Linda recalls a poster from the No campaign erected outside their daughters’ bedroom “saying every child deserves a mother and a father” in the months leading up to the referendum.
“They were at that age where they could absorb stuff very easily … When you opened the curtains every morning, that was facing them.”
The campaign was “hugely emotional”, Linda recalls. “I have always loved Ireland. I’m a real nester. I’m in the house I was born in, I’m a complete home bird. And yet, I did wonder, gosh if it’s a no, can we actually stay?”
For Feargha, the conversations that happened between friends in the days and weeks following the result were particularly meaningful.
“We were all talking about our stories of coming out and issues we‘d had at work – friends who’d lost their jobs because they were lesbian – and we were talking in a way that we hadn’t before about the things that had happened to us or we‘d encountered. You couldn’t look at them before because you just had to keep going.”
After a busy night celebrating the Yes result in May 2015, Linda was talked into proposing to Feargha on BBC’s 5 Live Breakfast Radio show. The couple married at a small wedding ceremony on August 20th, 2019.
“On a personal level, I’m finally beginning to get comfortable with referring to Linda publicly as my wife. I found it so hard saying that for the longest time,” Feargha says. “So many times, when our names were put together, they assumed Feargha was a typo and would put ‘l’ at the end. So it would be Fergal and Linda. It is funny how people do all sorts of mental gymnastics to be able to accommodate the idea of two women with children being married.”
Pointing to rollbacks in LGBTQ+ rights in Italy, Hungary and the US, they share concerns for the legal and personal safety of queer couples around the world.
Ireland’s vote for marriage equality has been “life changing” for them, Linda says. “Before we met, we didn’t know we could have a life like this.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘We got to be in the Pride parade on day two of our wedding’
Joey Kavanagh and Liam Karma
Joey Kavanagh moved from Co Meath to London the year before the referendum, from where he led the emigrant voting campaign Get the Boat 2 Vote – “a spur-of-the-moment thing that then became a very big part of my life” – which saw tens of thousands of young Irish citizens travelling home from abroad to vote for marriage equality.
“It was only in the 48 hours coming up to the referendum that it really became clear that it was a big deal. There were people coming from Australia and Canada and all parts of the world to cast their vote. It was a really cool thing to be part of.”
He remembers “feeling ecstatic” celebrating the result at Dublin Castle.
“It felt like a watershed moment, a breakthrough after decades of hard-won fights by people who had been campaigning for this and turning out for protests and rallies and marches … It forced a lot of really difficult but useful conversations, and from that emotion and sharing of stories came some catharsis.”
[ Marriage equality a decade on: ‘Things have gone backwards’Opens in new window ]
Just a few weeks later, he was in the queue for a nightclub in Soho when he met Australian Liam Karma, who was coming to the end of a two-year visa and getting ready to return home to Melbourne. After a few months together, the relationship became a long distance one until shortly before their Irish wedding day three years later.
On June 29th, 2018 – “the hottest day of the year” – they tied the knot and held a prom-themed wedding party at the Commercial Rowing Club in Islandbridge in Dublin 8.
“It wasn’t a traditional wedding,” says Liam, whose mother joined them from Australia for the celebrations.
“Dublin Pride was on the 30th so that was essentially day two of our wedding,” adds Joey. “A friend was working on PR for Dublin Bus and she got me and Liam and 15 of our friends on one of the buses. So we got to be in the Pride parade.”
While “it does feel like queerness has been normalised in Ireland and it feels different to when I was growing up”, Joey says, “we‘re not in as hopeful a place at the moment, like the pendulum has swung and we‘re seeing very regressive moves, particularly around trans rights.”
The couple now live with their two cats, Mog and Dagen, in Dublin 7. “We have no plans to adopt human children but these are our babies.” Joey works for the Arts Council and Liam is a store manager; he was granted Irish citizenship in December.
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘We want to start a family, but it’s not easy for us as gay men’
James McConville and Paul Corcoran
On their first date in 2016, after hitting it off during a night out in Belfast’s Union Street Bar, James McConville told Paul Corcoran “that we were going to get married”. Three years later they celebrated their wedding at Ballyvolane House in Fermoy, Co Cork, not far from where they now live.
On August 17th, 2019, James, an entrepreneur from Belfast, and Paul, a Cork native who works in tech support, held their marriage ceremony in a barn.
Paul is a solemniser with Pagan Federation Ireland. “For me, the word pagan is equivalent to being spiritually queer. It is having a sense of your own agency and autonomy, still working within a community, but you kind of get to make the rules up as you go along,” he says.
When it was his turn to be on the other side of the altar, he wanted to incorporate some pagan traditions.
“We had all the chairs arranged in two concentric circles, with a central altar. A circle was cast around the space and we consecrated the circle with water and fire. We both come from Catholic families so that sort of ceremony with smells and bells is something they’re all very comfortable with.”
The couple want to start a family, but “it’s not as easy for us, as gay men,” says James.
“We looked at the adoption route and we were told by someone in Tusla that it was near impossible, because of the legislation in place at the minute. To be told that because of who we are we wouldn’t be able to adopt, it did feel like we were second-class citizens.”
Paul recounts the intensity of the period leading up to the referendum in 2015. “I remember the last two weeks, I was working in a cafe in Galway and we were surrounded by the No campaign posters. I walked to work with my head down.”
Afterwards, he describes feeling huge relief; “There was a huge shift in my head because everyone that I looked at, I thought, you probably voted Yes.”
Ten years later, emotions are still high. “I was in a shop the other day and that Snow Patrol song Just Say Yes came on, and I started crying.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘I saw another side to the world where you don’t have to hide’
Val Tataru and Max Plamadeala
Val Tataru and Max Plamadeala met at their local nightclub in Moldova 16 years ago and their relationship quickly blossomed. The couple moved to Dublin together six years ago. Having grown up in Moldova and worked for some time in Russia, both countries where same-sex marriage is illegal, Ireland’s new law was the deciding factor in their move.
“What attracted us here was the referendum, to be honest … we were in need of that security,” says Val, who was encouraged by the 62 per cent Yes vote. “This says something about the country and the friendliness of the people here.”
I was somehow shocked how normal it felt to be able to go to the registry office and do it officially
— Val Tataru
When Val and Max moved to Ireland, they house-shared with another gay couple who encouraged them to attend Dublin Pride. Although apprehensive, they agreed to go to the parade.
It was “a completely different experience” for Val, who was more accustomed to “something like a very small manifestation in a nightclub, which was not advertised” in Moldova.
“I saw another side to the world where you don’t have to hide ... That was probably the moment when I felt liberated from my fears. And from then on, we were never afraid to hold hands in public.”
On May 24th, 2019, the couple were married in front of friends and family in Dublin. “It was a nice ceremony, full of tears ... I was somehow shocked how normal it felt to be able to go to the registry office and do it officially.”
For Val, marriage means safety and peace of mind. “You feel like you are protected. I know my husband will be able to visit me in hospital and have the possibility to make decisions for me, should I be unable to.”
It also opens the door for other “steps that you usually take in your life, such as buying a house”, because they can do so as a couple here. “It empowered us to feel included in society. We have the same rights as everyone else.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘Under the stars, he asked me to marry him’
Shane O’Reilly and Paul Curley
Actors Shane O’Reilly and Paul Curley met while acting in a show together with Kilkenny Barnstorm Theatre Company in 2009. Shane is also a playwright and Paul is a children’s theatre maker.
“I was playing a giant and Paul was playing Jack in a version of Jack and the Beanstalk, so Jack and the giant got together in this story,” says Shane.
“Under the stars beside this astonishing lake, he asked me to marry him,” he adds, recalling Paul’s romantic proposal in New Zealand 16 years later.
The pair opted to get married in City Hall, Dublin, on January 29th this year. As well as its association with the referendum celebrations, the location was meaningful for Shane’s father “who worked for Dublin City Council his whole life as a carpenter”. “He did his initial exams and his introduction to Dublin through that room in City Hall.”
Shane’s parents are both deaf so there were a lot of sign language and visual elements integrated into the day. “Then we headed over to Fallon and Byrne and ate and drank and danced the night away.”
[ ‘It’s better than a dig in the face’: LGBT employees on how the workplace became more accepting ]
The day the Yes result was announced is one that remains “seared into your consciousness”, says Shane, who vividly remembers “driving out of the city with this enormous sense of celebration behind us as we headed towards Galway,” where they were going to see a friend’s show.
At Paul’s family home in east Galway, there is a series of wedding photographs tracing lineage from his great grandparents to his parents. “It’s always been something I’ve looked at when having dinner there and thought, God, what a beautiful legacy of people who have gotten married. They are like totems of this family,” says Shane, who feels secure in the fact that he and Paul now share the same status.
For Paul, his wedding ring is “more than a symbol, it’s a real recognition of our commitment and life together”, which he is reminded of every time he puts the ring back on after performing on stage.
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘We felt a huge responsibility to every gay person’
Alan Hughes and Karl Broderick
Ireland AM presenter Alan Hughes and theatre producer Karl Broderick met on the street in Dublin on September 20th, 1993.
“We got on the same bus,” Karl remembers. “The number 28. Alan asked for my number and got off in Fairview, and I got off in Artane, and the next day he phoned and we met that night.” Their first date was in The Yacht in Clontarf, a few weeks after legislation was passed decriminalising homosexuality in Ireland. Karl recalls the discomfort they felt on the date, thinking they could bump into people they knew.
“But there was a thriving gay scene in Dublin, even at that stage. There were bars like the South William and the Viking and the George,” Alan recalls. “People were protective and looked out for each other.”
Twenty-three years later, Alan and Karl celebrated their civil partnership at the Unitarian Church on St Stephen’s Green in 2011. They threw a “lavish” wedding party in the Mansion House which attracted a lot of media coverage, including a cover story for VIP Magazine.
“We felt a huge responsibility to every gay person out there,” Karl says.
As a presenter on Irish breakfast TV, Alan has always been open about his sexuality. “From day one I always talked about Karl. I was on breakfast TV 25 years ago in Ireland as an openly gay man.”
Following an on-screen proposal after the referendum, the couple were married on September 30th, 2016 at a “low-key” ceremony. Just Alan’s brother Kevin and Karl’s sister Ann – who also took the photographs - were present as witnesses. “The four of us went to the registry office in Bray, got lunch in Powerscourt Hotel and were in the spa by 4pm.”
Reflecting on the decade anniversary of the referendum, Karl says “younger people need to know where we come from and never forget that we stand on the shoulders of giants. We’re lucky with the time we’re in. If we think of history as one line made up of pencil dots, we’re in that pencil dot where it became okay. That’s huge. People who went before us couldn’t live the life they were meant to live.”
Alan believes there has been a marked shift towards acceptance overall, highlighting interactions with fans of the couple’s annual pantomime.
“Thousands of people come to see our panto every year and they know me and they know I’m gay, they know Karl is my husband. That’s a lovely reflection on society, and acceptance.”
But more needs to be done, he says: “Ten years on, we need to reset the focus. Things are getting bad again and we need to start spreading the word that love is love.”
― ≈≈≈ ―
‘The morning of the results, I went wedding dress shopping’
Sarah and Geraldine Stone McDevitt
Sarah McDevitt was 32 when she came out in September 2013. The following St Patrick’s Day, she met Geraldine Stone, and exactly a year later the couple got engaged on Streedagh Beach in Co Sligo, near where Sarah grew up, the day after her mother‘s 60th birthday celebrations.
It was March 2015, two months before the referendum. “At that point we were planning to get civil partnered; we weren’t getting married. That wasn’t even a possibility,” Sarah says.
When they booked Kilronan Castle in Co Roscommon for their wedding reception that December, the couple “didn’t know Roscommon was going to vote No and that we‘d end up being the first people to get married there after marriage equality”, says Sarah.
“The morning of the results, I went wedding dress shopping because I thought that was the best way to deal with the nerves.”
Sarah and Geraldine and their four children – Lochlan, Grayson, Willow and Cooper – now live in Killester in north Dublin. Sarah works in advertising and Geraldine in telecommunications.
They took it in turns carrying and giving birth to each child. Sharing this experience, Sarah says, has made them “stronger as a couple”. “You can be a lot more empathetic to your partner.”
A prominent campaigner for LGBTQ+ parental rights, Sarah says the fight for equality is not over, as the Children and Family Relationships Act, passed in April 2015 to expand parental rights and responsibilities to non-traditional families, still excludes gay men with children.
“When we had Lochlan, it wasn’t enacted,” she says, referring to the Children and Family Relationships Bill. “Before we even started IVF, we were writing to Simon Harris [asking] ‘When is it going to happen?’
[ LGBT families in Ireland still caught in legal loopholeOpens in new window ]
“When he [Lochlan] was born, I was a single parent because there was no way that Ger could be on the birth certificate ... Ger couldn’t make any decisions for him. It was like she was a total stranger to him, even though she was raising him … that was really painful.”
The scope of the legislation widened in May 2020 to include co-parenting legal recognition for certain same-sex female couples, says Sarah, though in her view it remains “very limited”.
