16:43

The Irish are used to referendums. There have been 35 since 1937, when the Irish voted by plebiscite on the draft constitution that established the Republic of Ireland.

However, the resounding Yes vote in the same-sex marriage referendum is a major milestone, because it is a measure of how much the country has freed itself from the teachings of the Catholic church. Most of the referendums in Ireland have not been about social issues but drier, more straightforward questions.

But it is the referendums in the 1980s that put a mirror up to Irish society and culture. While outwardly there was some support for the kind of sexual liberalisation that the US and the UK had enjoyed in the 1960s and 1970s, inwardly Ireland was lurching into the firmer grip of the Catholic church.

Unmarried couples opting for cohabitation were still frowned upon outside certain parts of Dublin and a series of referendums confirmed the worst for those who had campaigned for abortion, divorce and contraception for all. The “no” to abortion and divorce in the 1983 and 1986 referendums set the cause of the political left back by decades.

Abortion is still illegal and divorce was only legalised following a second referendum in 1995. Even then, only four constituencies outside Dublin voted in favour.

This is why Friday’s vote was as much about a nation growing up and freeing itself from the shackles of the Catholic church and giving respect to fellow humans as it was about same-sex marriage.