Ireland’s new same-sex marriage law comes into force from Monday, six months after the country voted to allow gay unions in a historic referendum.
Existing same-sex marriages registered abroad will be immediately recognised in Ireland, while other couples can now submit their intention to marry.
“I felt I didn’t have permission to say we were married but from now we will say it at every opportunity,” said Vivian Cummins, 57, from Dublin who married his partner Erney in South Africa in 2009.
“I would never really admit by choice to being married because I didn’t feel married in this country,” he told AFP.
In May, Ireland voted 62.1 percent in favour of allowing marriage between two people “without distinction as to their sex”, the first time anywhere that gay marriage has been legalised in a referendum.
It was a long journey for LGBT campaigners in the traditionally Catholic country that only decriminalised homosexual acts in 1993.
“After years of waiting for this day, it’s just an extraordinary moment for us,” said Senator Katherine Zappone, who lost a High Court case in 2006 to have her Canadian marriage to her wife recognised in Ireland.
The couple plan to bring their “marriage home” in a ceremony in January after Zappone proposed to her wife Ann Louise Gilligan live on national television after the referendum result was announced.
A total of 2,054 couples have entered a civil partnership since Ireland introduced the legal unions in 2011 but a further ceremony will be required to convert these into marriage, with just a few days notice.
Under Irish law, it is required to submit an “intention to marry” to authorities three months before a marriage.
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