Equal Marriage Wins Big In Ireland

With what appears to be a landslide vote with record breaking turnouts, Ireland has voted for Marriage equality, what is interesting is the NO vote people were complaining yesterday that the yes vote campaigners were intimidating the voters and the NO votes would stay home, well with most precincts reporting over 60 percent turn out, that went flat, now they are saying the older voters just stayed home, well every precinct even in the countryside, where older voters lived had a overwhelming turnout with a large yes vote so the excuse also dies, truth is, Love won out over Hate and intolerance

National Summary Results

Yes: 1,201,607No: 734,300

62.1%

37.9%

Percent Turnout

60.4%                                                                              Turnout  1,824,08

Only one Constituency Voted NO

Roscommon-South Leitrim 

UPDATE: RIGHT AS THE NUMBERS WERE ANNOUNCED AT DUBLIN CASTLE CENTRE
 


Irish voters have decisively voted in favour of marriage equality, making Ireland the first country to do so through the ballot box. Only one of the 43 constituencies voted against the proposal – Roscommon-South Leitrim – while the yes vote exceeded 70% in many parts of Dublin. The no campaigners have paid tribute to their opponents, and the archbishop of Dublin has said the result should be a wake-up call for the Catholic church in Ireland.

The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has described the almost certain Yes final result as a wake-up call for the Catholic church. “This is a social revolution,” he told RTE Television. “The church has a huge task in front of it get its message across to young people ... The church needs to do a reality check.”

Asked if the church was ill-equipped to deal with these issues, he said: “We tend to think of black and white but most of us live our lives in grey.” The church needed to use the result to harness the energy that has been unleashed in favour of equality for all, the archbishop added.

Irish senator David Norris, who drove the decriminalisation of homosexuality from the 1970s to 1993, says: “It’s wonderful. It’s a little bit late for me ... I’ve spent so much time pushing the boat out that I forgot to jump on and now it’s out beyond the harbour on the high seas, but it’s very nice to look at.”

The Irish are used to referendums. There have been 35 since 1937, when the Irish voted by plebiscite on the draft constitution that established the Republic of Ireland.

However, the resounding Yes vote in the same-sex marriage referendum is a major milestone, because it is a measure of how much the country has freed itself from the teachings of the Catholic church. Most of the referendums in Ireland have not been about social issues but drier, more straightforward questions.

But it is the referendums in the 1980s that put a mirror up to Irish society and culture. While outwardly there was some support for the kind of sexual liberalisation that the US and the UK had enjoyed in the 1960s and 1970s, inwardly Ireland was lurching into the firmer grip of the Catholic church.

Unmarried couples opting for cohabitation were still frowned upon outside certain parts of Dublin and a series of referendums confirmed the worst for those who had campaigned for abortion, divorce and contraception for all. The “no” to abortion and divorce in the 1983 and 1986 referendums set the cause of the political left back by decades.

Abortion is still illegal and divorce was only legalised following a second referendum in 1995. Even then, only four constituencies outside Dublin voted in favour.

This is why Friday’s vote was as much about a nation growing up and freeing itself from the shackles of the Catholic church and giving respect to fellow humans as it was about same-sex marriage.

And the crowd goes wild... Dublin Castle hears the result of Ireland's same-sex marriage referendum.Watch all of our coverage of Ireland's vote over on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7NaNqbVXtk&list=PLXjqQf1xYLQ4kUoM0Jx_IEPMDZrUyGOaB
Posted by Channel 4 News on Saturday, May 23, 2015

 
At the start of the referendum campaign a 67-year-old veteran politician finally outed himself as gay for the cause of the Yes campaign. Pat Carey, a former parliamentarian for Fianna Fail, told the Guardian two months ago that he came out to convince those of his generation and rural background that it was ok to be gay. 
Turning up at Dublin Castle, Carey said of the result: “It means everything for myself and people like me. It’s a gigantic step along the road of a very long journey and it’s a day where the Irish people will have wide open arms, and embraced us like I never thought they would do it with such strength and generosity.”