It's 10 years since the passing of the Marriage Equality Referendum which gave the right to same sex couples to marry legally.
This day a decade ago has been seen by many as a milestone especially when you think back to 1993 when it was only then that homosexuality was decriminalised.
Paul and Stephen Bardin O'Donnell are a married couple who live in Co Monaghan, they say marriage equality was a milestone that fundamentally changed personal and legal experiences for same-sex couples across the country.
Both men agreed that marriage for a gay man or woman prior to the referendum was a dream that seemed impossible because when both were in their early teens being openly gay would have been a criminal act.
They said the reality of being married yesterday 8 years would not have been possible without the marriage equality referendum being passed 10 years ago.
Both Stephen and Paul have been together for 24 years and have lived in rural South Monaghan for the past 18 years. Paul says It's a bit bittersweet moment to celebrate 10 years of equality
Stephen says legal change transformed their perspective, allowing them to dream and plan futures that were previously unimaginable.
The couple who are originally from Dublin, decided to move to just outside Carrickmacross and have run a successful business in the town over the past 15 years.
Looking back at growing up and coming out as gay, both men said they feel extremely lucky that both felt very accepted by their families. Stephen says marriage equality in Ireland has profoundly impacted same-sex couples in several key ways with the likes of legal rights, a sense of "equalness" with their peers and community, the ability to celebrate relationships openly and seeing a generational shift within society towards gay people.
Couples like Stephen and Paul gained crucial legal protections, such as automatic beneficiary status in wills and hospital visitation rights, which were previously unimaginable. The referendum allowed same sex couples to make a public commitment and be recognized like heterosexual couples. Coming from a time when homosexuality was criminalised in 1993, marriage equality represented a dramatic social transformation, giving same-sex couples legal and social legitimacy they were previously denied.
Paul said, "It's a bit bittersweet, because we should have always been here. So I suppose to be here and celebrate 10 years it's huge. Both Stephen and I actually celebrated our wedding anniversary yesterday, eight years so again, that's another milestone number for us. We wouldn't be able to do that if it wasn't for marriage equality."
Paul recalls a time when the importance of marriage for him came to light on a legal front, "we had to go to our solicitor to sign something, probably about two or three years ago, and we went to our family solicitor, and we were in the process of signing something, and we said to him, Oh, by the way, I like my will done. I need to get my will changed, because now me and Stephen are married, and our solicitor turned around and went, now, because you're legally married, that will is null and void, you will automatically be the beneficiary for everything. Because of that difference, civil partnership didn't give us that. Nothing gave us that until marriage equality came in and that was one of the big things in marriage equality."
Paul looks back to a different Ireland in the early 1990s, "we grew up in Dublin, and it was the mid 90s, so things were a little bit easier than rural Ireland. It was a dream that seemed impossible, because obviously the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland in 1993 both Stephen and I were teenagers in 1993 and that's when you're planning your wedding, you're planning your future, you're planning your life. We weren't able as a same sex couple or as a member of the LGBT community, we weren't able to have those dreams and fantasies as our friends and peers as they were growing up. So it wasn't really something that we seen obtainable or reachable. So it just wasn't there. And it was only when the movement started and marriage equality became a thing, we then began to see that this could be for us. This could be our lives."
Stephen said "there was never any thought that marriage was going to be a feature for us and then it did start to become a feature."
Stephen said the commitment of marriage was important for a level playing field, "It was about being united together in front of our family, and it puts us on a level playing field with everybody else. And that's at the time you weren't really too sure what that meant. But as the years have gone on, it's actually been invaluable, you know, to have that you now have equalness.
"It gave us a level playing field in terms of, even in terms of legal wise, in terms of, if anything happened to me, I was so confident Paul was the next person that was going to get everything that I have, or vice versa. Or, you know, if I was ill in hospital, or Paul was ill in hospital, we could walk in and sign the documentation, whatever is needed, and that's done. But prior to being married, that wasn't the case. Even though we have been partners for 16 years, my family would have been my next to kin. Paul's family would have been his next to kin. So it was all of those things all started to come together for us, and now not having that, you know, yeah, not having those kind of barriers or those kind of blocks gives us just a kind of a comfortable living."
Stephen said growing up he always felt excepted by his family, "I suppose, was that the family kind of accepted that it was gay, and that was the lifestyle that I had chosen, I suppose the when you mentioned in terms of the marriage referendum law, that even wasn't even part of the conversation back then. So you were just living life as a gay boy or a gay man, and you were, you know, been involved in the community, forming relationships, and that still kind of cautious as to who you would say you're gay to, or you're cautious about maybe in certain areas and things that are in Dublin, but where, you know, in terms of safety and stuff like that. So it wasn't as as free as it is now. So, but marriage was never, or marriage was never really on the table, you know. so it wasn't really a conversational piece for me anyway."
