Twenty years of divorce in Ireland - How have we fared?

On this day in 1997, divorce was legalised in Ireland. Jonathan deBurca Butler looks at how we’ve fared since

Twenty years ago today divorce came to Ireland. Two years previously, it had been passed in a referendum by just 1.7%. The margin of victory was slim, the societal shift enormous.

“It was another bit of the Church’s power being chipped away,” says Brian Whiteside of the Humanist Association of Ireland. “If we look back 40 years ago, homosexuality was outlawed, divorce was banned, contraception wasn’t allowed. These were all things that had been imposed by the Church and were things that should not really be in a modern democratic country, especially a republic. Divorce was another milestone on our journey towards a secular Ireland.”