‘Let’s celebrate the next generation of Irish people who can marry whomever they love’

Writing through tears of joy and pain, Donnachadh McCarthy, who came out in his late teens in 1979, is still relishing the result of last week’s marriage equality referendum

I cried lots of tears every time I watched the coverage of the positive marriage equality referendum. When I came out in Cork, in my late teens in 1979, the punishment by law for sleeping with your partner was life imprisonment with hard labour.

I had two gay friends brutally murdered in homophobic attacks — one was left in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs with 27 knife wounds and the other left tied up with a knife through his heart.