Polls have opened in Ireland, where voters are making history as the republic becomes the first country to ask its electorate to legalise gay marriage.

More than 3 million voters have been invited to cast ballots in Ireland’s 43 constituencies, with the result to follow on Saturday. Polling stations opened at 7am BST and close at 10pm.



The voting follows a hard-fought and occasionally rancorous battle between conservative and liberal Ireland.

Though some 20 other countries worldwide have already legalised gay marriage, Ireland would be the first to do so through a referendum. The move would mark the culmination of an improbable journey in a country in which homosexual acts were still illegal as recently as 1993.

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Voter turnout is said to be higher than in previous referendums in the republic, with some urban areas, particularly in the key greater Dublin battleground, reporting that 20% of the electorate had cast their vote before lunchtime.

Turnout out in rural areas is so far said to be slow, and if this trend continues it would be seen as a boost to the yes campaign.



Among those up early to vote in central Dublin was Irish senator and James Joyce academic David Norris. Senator Norris is the gay rights veteran whose legal battle resulted in the Irish government decriminalising homosexuality in 1993.

Donal Og Cusack, one of Ireland’s most famous openly gay sportsmen, spoke of his nerves on the eve of the referendum. The gifted Cork hurler confessed he had “slept better before AI final (All-Ireland)“ than he had on Thursday night.

To emphasise its support for a yes vote, the headquarters of Fine Gael, the main party in the ruling coalition, has been flying the rainbow flag outside its Dublin offices.

The Fine Gael-Labour government, alongside the main opposition parties, said it was confident Ireland would vote yes despite strong campaigning in the past few days by those opposed to same-sex marriage.



The government pointed to 68,000 more people of voting age who have signed on to the electoral register within the last fortnight. The administration in Dublin sees this as a sign that younger voters will turn out in higher numbers than in previous referendums to back the yes side. In every opinion poll the yes camp has been ahead.



In his final live televised interview ahead of polling stations opening, Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, urged voters to vote yes “for love and for equality”.



But the no campaign, comprising mainly lay Catholic intellectuals, writers and activists, have warned a yes vote would create a crisis of personal conscience in Ireland. An alliance of evangelical Catholics and Protestants have distributed more than 90,000 anti-gay marriage pamphlets over the past week across Ireland urging a no vote.



Paddy Monaghan, one of the coordinators of the alliance of 100 religious activists, issued a warning on the eve of the referendum.



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“We have warned in our pamphlet about the major implications on the issue of conscience if there is a yes vote on Friday. If there is a yes vote, will the Muslim printer in Ireland now be obliged to print cartoons of Muhammad? Redefining marriage is sold to us by the media and political establishment as a permissive measure but it will quickly become coercive,” Monaghan said.



In the last week of campaigning, Pat Storey, the first female Anglican bishop in Ireland, England, Scotland or Wales, has written to all her clergy in Meath and Kildare, explaining her reasons for voting no.



Focusing on fears stirred up by the no camp about children allegedly being forcibly adopted by gay couples, Bishop Storey said: “You cannot redefine marriage without including information and reference to children, family and the good of society. It is my view that, where possible, children benefit most from both genders parenting them. That is not to say that single parents who find themselves alone do not do an immensely great job in raising their children. Yet I believe that it is God’s intention that, where feasible, children should have a mother and father.”



Until this week the yes-no battle was coloured by accusations that opponents of gay marriage were misleading the public over claims about forced adoptions or same-sex couples having a supposed right to obtain children through surrogacy. The yes camp has pointed out that the commissioner overseeing the campaign has dismissed these claims and emphasised they were not connected to gay marriage.



In the past few days, the campaign has turned much uglier, with yes advocates revealing the amount of vitriolic abuse they have received. Irish Times writer Una Mullally tweeted a link to a letter she was sent that referred to her revelation during the campaign that she had cancer. The letter-writer told her: “Sorry to hear about your cancer but maybe it is the will of God.”

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Referring to Mullally going public about her illness, her sexuality and her support for the yes side, the letter-writer continued: “After all you have been relentlessly pushing the twisted idea of gay marriage which would destroy the family as we know it and ruin the lives of generations of innocent children victimised by the narcissism of their ‘parents’.”



Mullally’s correspondent ended the letter with further personalised, racially tinged abuse directed at her and her partner: “My advice is to accept that you are both homosexual and not very pretty, as there are far worse fates; you might be black for instance.”

Meanwhile, Colm O’Gorman, the executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, prominent yes campaigner and survivor of clerical child sex abuse, disclosed on Thursday that a no voter tweeted him a picture of a gay man being thrown to his death off a building by Islamic State extremists. O’Gorman said the image was vile.

Seventeen countries, including Spain, France, Argentina and Denmark, along with several states in the US, allow same-sex couples to marry.

Ireland, however, is unique because it is the only country to ask its electorate to endorse gay marriage in a plebiscite. The result will be known on Saturday afternoon.

