DUBLIN — This Tuesday Ireland celebrated its first gay wedding in County Tipperary. The ceremony was possible due to the approval of a same-sex marriage legislation following a referendum in May.
The wedding was between two 35 year old men from Dublin, lawyer Cormac Gollogly and financier Richard Dowling, who have been partners for 12 years. It was directed by Mary-Claire Heffernan, a senior county registrer who conducted a previous civil partnership ceremony for the couple back in September 18.
Although the former ceremony had more than a hundred guests and the couple celebrated with a trip to the Maldives, the recent wedding was rather small, with only two witnesses and a family dinner later to end the night.
“When you grow up you don’t want to be part of a civil partnership, you want to be married. Today was about recognizing what we would have wanted to have on Sept. 18,” said Dowling in an interview after the ceremony.
Ireland is the first country to legalize gay marriage through popular vote, with a remarkable majority of 62% for what used to be known as a very conservative and catholic society. Although some legal inconveniences postponed the weddings during the first months after the bill was passed, the country officially recognized gay marriage this week.
Gallogly said the day had been “a real whirlwind,” and his partner pointed out how it was nice to “be like everyone else” and that now they could just relax and grow old together.
Under the Irish law, couples registering to marry are required to give a three month notice, but there is an exception for those people who previously joined in a civil partnership — which is why Gallogly and his now husband Dowling were allowed to marry the very next day, becoming the first same-sex married couple in Ireland.
Source: New York Times