VIDEO: Marriage Referendum: First comes love, then comes marriage...

After the yeses come the I dos.

Mon, 25 May, 2015 - 01:00

Kelly O'Brien

With the ink barely dry on the ballot papers, gay couples across the country popped a far more important question over a momentous weekend.

Katriona Hourihan, from Cork, and Nora Dennehy, from Kerry, are in a hurry to upgrade from civil partnership to full-blown marriage by the end of next year.

“It means a lot to me and Nora to be able to legally get married in our own country. It means a lot that the people of Ireland are supporting and are behind us,” said Katriona.

She said the overwhelming yes vote means their daughter, Willow Belle, will now have the same constitutional rights as any other child growing up in Ireland.

“We wouldn’t want Willow growing up in a world where her parents were essentially being shunned for loving each other,” she said.

“That would make her feel like she’s not equal, that she’s different. In this day and age, people shouldn’t feel different because of who they love.”

Corkman Evan Murphy and Michael Keogh, from Limerick, also have plans to marry.

“We’ve been engaged for two years now and we’re looking to get married in July 2016,” said Evan. “We have the hotel booked, the photographer booked, the videographer is booked — and we’ve told everyone already, everyone has been really supportive.”

Meanwhile, senator and yes campaig-ner Katherine Zappone took advantage of TV cameras to propose to her long-term partner, Ann Louise Gilligan, live on RTÉ.

“I said yes to Katherine 12 years ago at our marriage in Canada,” Ms Gilligan said. “Now we are bringing the yes back home to Ireland, our country, yes, yes, yes.”

The couple married in Canada in 2003 and fought a series of unsuccessful legal battles in the courts to have their union officially recognised by the State. In front of hundreds of cheering well-wishers, Ms Zappone asked her partner to remarry her as she revealed her feelings on the momentous vote. “I’m feeling emotional from the top all the way down to my toes,” the senator said.