Joyce Fegan: We must never lose our sense of compassion

'It's as if hate has become PC, the way in which to enact our free speech'

Supporters for same-sex marriage raise a cheer at Dublin Castle as they wait for the result of the referendum on May 23, 2015. Picture: Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images

“It was a proud day to be Irish,” said the papers. It was Saturday, May 23, 2015, and we as a people had just voted to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote — the first country in the world to do so.

What else did the foreign press say about us, the morning after the day before? Our vote was “hailed a social revolution”, according to The Guardian. We were now a country “at the vanguard of social change”, said The New York Times.