Talk:Same-sex marriage in the Republic of Ireland/Archive 1

Why is this page up for deletion and where can I go to argue against it? Spinboy 22:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest merging it with something else. Anglachel 23:25, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't. It's detailed enough to stand on its own, and plenty of countries and subnational entities already have their own Same-sex marriage in foo articles. -Montréalais 20:15, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Someone told me that Gilligan and Zapaone had lived in Dublin as a couple for years. If true, then the word "relocated" should probably be "returned". Evertype 11:27, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

Propose redirecting to Civil unions in Ireland
I think this article should be redirected for the following reasons


 * 1) There has been no specific debate on same-sex marriage in Ireland.  There has been general debate on the issues surrounding gay relationships.  The outcome of the debate is much more likely to be some form of civil union, falling short of marriage.  Therefore the debate is best covered in the article on Civil Unions
 * 2) This article is incomplete - it refers on only one element of the debate, the Gilligan/Zappone case and a very incomplete reference to the constitutional review.  The external links are missing some more relevant articles.  To make the article complete would require including much of the material which I have already added to the Civil Unions article.  There would then be duplication.  Redirects are a better way to handle that issue.
 * 3) For other countries which have had and resolved the debate on recognition of gay relationships by adopting civil parternships, such as UK, the articles on Same-sex marriage are redirected to civil unions
 * 4) The inclusion of Ireland in a list of articles on Same sex marriage which begins with Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, USA, given that SSM is not being debated and is very unlikely to arise, means that for consistency, all other countries which are more advanced in their treatment of gay relationships should also be included - such as Denmark, Portugal, UK, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic etc.
 * 5) Others in the past have also proposed the removal of this page.  The only argument made in favour of it's retention was that it is detailed enough - not true - and that the same policy is followed for other countries - not true.  The conclusion that the article is detailed enough was made by Montrelais - who is Canadian and thus probably not as familiar with the situation in Ireland as an Irish person, such as I
 * 6)  The only other person currently in favour of retaining this article - Spinboy - is also based in Canada, and again, not as familiar with the situation as I.

I strongly feel that this article should be redirected. If there are signficant points made here against doing so, then I will invite debate among the Irish WP community, and possibly request a vote. If there are no convincing rebuttals of the points above I will revert to my redirects in a week or so. -Rye1967 23:57, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree with re-directing it.
 * Sources: * Irish Examiner
 * Taipei Times
 * Irish Examiner Editorial--Spinboy 00:10, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Please comment on my points above or support your position with your own arguments. Your only argument for retention is the citing of links from the article itself.  Those links are not evidence any substantial debate in Ireland on same-sex marriage as distinct from civil unions :-
 * The first link is broken
 * The second link is a report on the first day of the Gilligan/Zappone recognition case. It is not evidence of a debate on provision of same-sex marriage in Ireland.  In the unlikely scenario that the case is won and the court directs that the state could/should recognise out-of-state same-sex marriages for tax purposes, the only possible possible positive result for Irish gay couples in the current 'climate' would be a form of civil unions.  Taoiseach Ahern stated Nov 04 that gay marriage 'is a long way off' and I believe that even a majority of the Irish gay community would agree.
 * The third link is a commentary on remarks by Justice Minister McDowell that a significant extension of tax breaks would have colossal consquences for married couples. The gay-marriage headline is misleading since the minister is not reported as specifically referring to gay marriage as opposed to any other form of partnership.  Even if he was, he was debating a red-herring with himself, since no-one else is raising the issue.  His remarks could also be considered speculative, inaccurate, outside of his domain, and a trial balloon, and therefore not worthy of an encyclopedia.
 * -Rye1967 04:05, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

I live in Ireland and can inform you that "marriage" is in fact being discussed. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has made a position paper regarding full equality, which means marriage is on the table along with other configurations. So it is not the case that SSM is not being discussed. It is. Evertype 19:28, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources for that ICCL position paper? On their site -  I find their Dec 04 submission on the Law Reform Commission report on partnership rights. (http://www.iccl.ie/about/05_LawReformCommissionSubmissionPartnershipRights.pdf).  It says that ICCL welcome the LRC proposals, that addressing inequalities in family law and legal recognition of partnership rights are ICCL strategic goals to 2009.  It goes on to say that the LRC proposals do not go far enough and that civil registered unions are necesary.  No mention of same-sex marriage.
 * - Rye1967 21:47, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have a copy of this document. I assume it has been submitted. I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I assure you, "marriage" is being discussed in Ireland. Many will take any rights over no rights but full equality means just what it says on the tin. I do not understand why you think this article should be deleted. People are discussing "The Family" and "marriage" as referred to in the Constitution, and that means that SSM is being discussed. Evertype 23:08, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)
 * I think that the contents of the ICCL website are stronger evidence than a document which you personally posess. Furthermore, on RTE Radio 1, Sun 20th March,  Marie Mulholland, ICCL "Partnerships Officer", briefly discussed the issue.  She said there were 2 possible approaches - seek SSM or something less.  She agreed that offering 'full' marriage to gay couples would probably require a constitutional amendment, and said that such an amendement would be unlikely to pass and that therefore it is better to seek partnerships.  So ICCL is not seeking full marriage for gays and my point still stands - there is no substantial public debate/discussion/campaign on specifically offering same-sex-marriage in Ireland right now, of a level that requires a page on this encyclopedia.  There may be in the future, and I take no issue with your definition of full equality, but this debate is about the correct characterisation of the current debate in Ireland, not about what the outcome 'should' be.  Equally, there is no substantial debate/discussion/campaign/legal moves on expressly limiting marriage to man/woman, but if there was it might be justifcation for an article (eg Same-sex marriage in Australia, Same-sex marriage in France) ... although it doesn't appear to have lead to articles on those 11+ USA States that have done just that.


 * Your proposition that there should be an article on SSM-Ireland because people are discussing family/marriage/the Constituation doesn't stand either. Those topics would be best covered in Constitution of Ireland, or in 'Marriage in Ireland'.


 * I have given 6 reasons above why the article should redirected and content deleted. Point 6 - Only 2 people in favour of retention - is now partially disproved.  However in order to clarify, I will make my point in a different way.


 * What we are debating is the correct 'drawer' in this encyclopedia to contain the Irish gay partnerships debate, either 'Civil Unions' or 'Same-Sex marriage. It is unfortunate that each country has to be in one of the other drawer (only Ireland - and of recent days, South Africa - are in both), it would be better if the articles were entitied 'Gay Partnership Rights in XXX'.  However the convention has been adopted and changing it now would be a substantial project.


 * Now, if a martian were to visit this planet, wanting to marry her martian girlfriend, and consulted this encyclopeida, she needs accurate info. If she were to look into the SSM drawer, she would find Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa, USA (part) ... and Ireland.  Despite wanting more visitors in Ireland, that would be misleading info for her.  She has no hope of marrying her girlfriend in Ireland for a long long time and should go to one of the others, except Australia&France-moves against- and Romania - only a politcial campaign stmt in favour.  If our martian friend is happy to accept a civil partnership then she could go to Ireland - but she would be best served to first read Civil Union and consider Germany, UK, NZ, etc.  Of course we are not writing for martians, but humans like accurate coverage too.
 * - Rye1967 01:04, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Reference
I have removed the sentence below - as the department of Justice website does not state this at all

}} . In June, the terms of reference were amended so that the committee was no longer precluded from considering full marriage rights for same-sex couples.

This is what the DOJ website says

The Group is charged with preparing an Options Paper on Domestic Partnership for presentation to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform by October 2006, within the following terms of reference:

to consider the categories of partnerships and relationships outside of marriage to which legal effect and recognition might be accorded, consistent with Constitutional provisions, and to identify options as to how and to what extent legal recognition could be given to those alternative forms of partnership, including partnerships entered into outside the State. The Group is to take into account models in place in other countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirage26 (talk • contribs) 06:06 4 July


 * Ok, fair enough. I will go back to my source and check.--Rye1967 17:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

GA on hold
This article will be put on hold (for 7 days) until these minor adjustments can be made :


 * 1. Well written? Pass
 * 2. Factually accurate? Pass
 * 3. Broad in coverage? Pass
 * 4. Neutral point of view? Pass
 * 5. Article stability? Pass
 * 6. Images? N/A

Additional comments :
 * May we have a citation for Examples are those of a man who sought to use his partners free-travel rights, and of a man whose partner, the leaseholder of their residence, died.
 * Inline citations should go after punctuation in WP.
 * have commented publicly in recent years is not acceptable because WP is time independent.

Well-cited text, it is really informative and keeps a neutral tone. Only a few comments have been made that can be fixed in a jiffy and then we can consider awarding the GA status. Lincher 14:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

GA passed
This article has looked into the majority of the comments and now meets the requirements. Lincher 01:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merger with Same-sex marriage in Ireland
It is proposed to merge this article and Same-sex marriage in Ireland into a new (to be created) article called Same-sex marriage and civil unions in the Republic of Ireland. In order not to prejudge the result of the discussion I haven't created this article yet. Other suggestions for the name of the destination article are welcome.

This is part of a general proposed merger of the "Same-sex marriage in..." with the "Civil unions in..." series. Any general points can be discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies.

In essence these articles deal with the same subject matter and unified articles could deal more comprehensively with the topic and avoid unnecessary repetition. Caveat lector 17:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I support the merger. On Talk:Same-sex marriage in Ireland, I had attemped to do this before but it foundered, one of the issues being the lack of a suitable title.  I don't like your suggestion, how about Recognition of gay unions in Ireland --Rye1967 17:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So I noticed. I figured a neutral merged article title would stand a better chance of success. In risk of repeating myself I'll go along with Recognition of gay unions in Ireland. As far as the Ireland articles go I think only the public opinion section of the Same-sex marriage in Ireland article is worth keeping. Civil unions in the Republic of Ireland is clearly a much better article. Caveat lector 18:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Before you merge, please take a moment to consider the issues I raised at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_LGBT_studies--Textorus 19:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The new para. on Proposed Civil Unions
This paragraph is based on the policy statement of the Taoiseach at the recent re-launch of outhouse in July 2007. I think that the statement is not unique or sufficiently notable to deserve a paragaraph of its own. There have been many similiar Government statements in the past that have not been given paragraphs such as: etc etc so we don't need to even mention every one.
 * The FF/GP Programme for Government of June 2007
 * Statements by Justice Minister McDowell and others during Dail debates on the Labour Party Bill of Feb 2007
 * Govt response in Nov 2006 to the Colley Report
 * Taoiseachs comments in Jan 2006 at the launch of the Constitutional Committe report
 * Taoiseachs comments during his previous visit to Outhouse in 2006

What is notable and probably deserves mention in the opening paragrph, or on the public debate section is that the programme for government promises the introduction of Civil Partnerships during the lifetime of the Govt. That is a new elevation of the issue and notable as evidence of continuance by the new Govt of the same attitude already mentioned in the OP Comments?--Rye1967 13:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware of the history of promises as you mention; I had seen the latest one mentioned in a couple of news articles, and, taking the words at face value, thought it seemed significant. Delete if you like; but hey, why not replace my paragraph with the mini-history of these failed promises that you just wrote above?  That seems even more significant to the subject of this article.--Textorus 00:19, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Replaced para with additional opening sentence. Promises above were sufficiently vague to never have failed, and, I think, not sufficiently notable in the bigger scale of things to deserve their own para.--Rye1967 22:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

GA review &mdash; kept
This article has been reviewed as part of WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards,Ruslik 10:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The title
The title of this article is misleading, as the article itself is only about the Republic of Ireland. There is quite a different legal regime for the recognition of same-sex unions in Northern Ireland. Mooretwin (talk) 12:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This editor is well aware of WT:IECOLL so making comment like this is a form of canvassing. Anyway, since the island of Ireland can't pass legislation, there's nothing ambiguous about this title - same reason why there's an article on Constitution of Ireland and Flag of Ireland.
 * Unfortunately, WT:IECOLL is not apparently dealing with articles such as this. The fact that the island of Ireland, as a unit, cannot pass legislation, is irrelevant, since it is still quite possible that this article could be about the whole island: covering legislation passed separately in each jurisdiction. Mooretwin (talk) 16:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The constituation of Ireland declares the name of the state 'Éire', or in the english language 'Ireland', the phrase 'Republic of Ireland' is the states officially description, not the name of the state. Northern Ireland is legally known as 'Northern Ireland'. While the entire island may be called Ireland, it's two juristictions have two seperate names and a common standard has been created on wikipedia, as you can see the common standard is for articles pertaining to the Republic are named as 'Ireland' while those pertaining to 'Northern Ireland' are named as such. As well as the common practise in most nations i.e USA, Canada, Australia to refer to the republic as 'Ireland' in news and publications while the north being called 'Northern Ireland'. So as the common practises have been set, this articles title is not misleading, perhaps it is best that you review other articles on the Ireland and Northern Ireland and you will see wikipedia's common practise. Though if you would like to challenge this, I recommend going to a community page to begin such an arguement, as changing one title will disrupt common practise, so it is best to change said common practise, if you feel so strongly about this topic.--AnOicheGhealai (talk) 17:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Bill was debated on 3th December 2009

 * RTE News:Ahern hails Bill as 'significant milestone' 92.252.105.177 (talk) 22:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed on legislation
The lede paragraph here currently states that the government published the civil partnerships law in June of 2009. Some news sources that I've googled up reported at that time that the government had passed the law; but the very last paragraph of this article suggests that this is not the case.

Would someone with a better knowledge of Irish parliamentary procedures than myself please clarify the point here?

If it is merely the text of a proposed bill, seems to me that it might be modified as it goes through the legislative process; so there's nothing certain about it yet, right?

Also, this long article could use some tidying up in general to be more concise; as it stands, you have to wade through many sections to find out exactly what the CP situation is now, in 2009. The "current situation" section does not reflect the current status of things at all.

And in the very last section, there's a reference to the government's having published the "Heads" of the civil partnership act in 2008; what does that mean? Seems to be Anglo-Irish parliamentary jargon for "main points" or "an outline"; it's not clear for a worldwide audience. Textorus (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The bill waspublished in June 2009. It began the second stage (debate stage) on 3 December 2009 and this is now complete. The bill has been referred to a parliamentary committee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PLehany (talk • contribs) 20:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

censor at it again
Following sentence was deleted several times. In May 2010, Portugal approved same sex marriage, making Ireland the last remaining large country in Western Europe not to have some sort of legal recognition of either same sex civil unions or same sex marriages refer same-sex marriage map Europe to the right.

To mr censor... If one does not agree -- use the discussion page -- and present facts --which other large country in western europe has no kind of any legal recognition? 213.30.114.39 (talk) 08:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

to the allmightly all knowing censor who deletes contributions from others
Why don't you start your own RON-pedia instead of destroying the purpose of wikipedia -- bringing knowledge together by users cooperating. Once again you deleted the sentence In May 2010, Portugal approved same sex marriage, making Ireland the last remaining large country in Western Europe not to have some sort of legal recognition of either same sex civil unions or same sex marriages refer same-sex marriage map Europe to the right. A simple question was asked here - Which other large country in western europe ? No answer given -- just another deletion. 82.154.145.183 (talk) 08:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Very funny. Concerning question: Which other large country in western europe? Italy. Apparently, you are unconscious. Your last edition: Along with Italy, Ireland is only one of two large Western European countries not to have some sort of legal recognition of same-sex unions, either in the form of registered partnerships or same-sex marriage (see the map to the right). The sentence is . The map is enough. People are not blind. Wikipedia it not a rubbish dump. Ron 1987 09:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * and once again the mighty censor struck --- Italy as western european country ?? Europe's most southern part is an Italian island --- but Italy laying in the west ?? Would that not be Portugal ? Check your geographic basics --- ooah and between Portugal and Italy there is also Spain and France
 * 81.193.239.72 (talk) 22:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again, the sentence is incorrect and dispensable. One sources classified both, Portugal and Italy, as a Southern European countries. See Southern Europe,, Other source classified both countries as a western. See Western Europe,  Describing Ireland as a large country is absurd. Population of Ireland is one of the smaller in Western Europe. Every such edit will be reverted. Ron 1987 13:39, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Would the anon IP editor stop inserting this pov editorialising into the article? As Ron 1987 has pointed out, the statements have also been factually incorrect. On Wikipedia, we are concerned with the facts, the current facts are that same sex civil unions are not legal in the Republic of Ireland, but they may be legal in the near future. These are the only facts to be concerned with. Adding commentary which implies that the lack of civil unions is a bad thing is unacceptable. Wikipedia editors are supposed to be neutral. Calen11 (talk) 14:05, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the wholesale removal of 81.193.239.72's edit. It is a fact that Ireland, along with Italy, are the only two of the EU-15 states to not recognise same-sex unions. I think this is a rather relevant piece of information which contextualises the Civil Partnership Bill in Ireland. Of course, the use of "large country" was somewhat clumsy, but I think what 81.193.239.72 was trying to do was exclude microstates such as San Marino, Liechtenstein and Vatican City, which also do not recognise same-sex unions. I think a better construction would be to use "EU-15" (the original states of the EU) rather than "Western Europe". Another construction is "Ireland is one of the few countries in Western Europe to not recognise same-sex unions; the only other ones are Italy and some microstates such as Liechtenstein, San Marino and the Vatican City". However, I support the inclusion of commentary to this effect. Ronline ✉ 08:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Legislation passed Dáil
Legislation to recognise the civil partnership of same-sex couples passed all stages in the Dáil on July 1, 2010 92.252.24.183 (talk) 21:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * IrishTimes:Partnership Bill 'a most important piece of legislation'

What is in the Act?
I do not know what is in the Act - it is very difficult to understand. It would be very helpful if someone with good knowledge described issues such as capacity to enter into civil partnership, nationality or residence issues (if relevant) etc.Wenckheim (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Judgement/judgment
The Oxford Dictionary says the spelling "judgment" is conventional in legal contexts instead of "judgement": http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0433600#m_en_gb0433600

I have altered the spelling accordingly throughout. Hope this is ok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wenckheim (talk • contribs) 23:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The spelling corrections are fine, but I did want to let you know that corrections hit the filenames in two web links where they shouldn't have been corrected, I've fixed 'em. Keep an eye out for situations like that when fixing typos. But no worries, easily fixed, thanks for the update!  Cheers!  --  j &#9883; e decker  talk  23:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed new article structure
By Jan 2011 when hopefully CP's will start taking place, or even earlier, it will be time to revise the structure of this article. The current structure was largely created by me some years ago, when all activity on the issue was about justifying the need for some form of recognition. Now, it might be more informative to have the current situation (including some details on how the legislation operates), history of how we got here (including a truncated version of most of the existing content), and perhaps a section on the issues regarding full civil marriage, which is where the recognition debate may continue. Thoughts? --Rye1967 (talk) 20:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Details about legislation also should be included in Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 Ron 1987 20:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Recognition of (some) foreign partnerships?
I was just reading on a gay blog that Ireland's recently passed S.I. 649 recognizes Civil partnerships from the UK and Civil unions from New Zealand and the US state of New Jersey, but not the seemingly analogous unions provided by the Ley de Unión Concubinaria in Uruguay. Moreover, Domestic partnerships from such US states as Washington and Nevada are not recognized, but Czech Registrované partnerství and Danish Registreret partnerskab do get recognition. Finally, French PACS get totally snubbed! Does anyone from Ireland have some insight into why some foreign partnership laws were recognized, but not others? And should there be a sentence or two in this section of the article about what criteria are used in deciding to recognize foreign partnerships? Throbert McGee (talk) 15:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The French PACS is not included, nor are some other legal relationships - for example, the Dutch Civil Partnership and some of the Domestic Partnerships in the US (e.g. California). The reason is that these kinds of relationships can be dissolved by agreement between the parties (e.g. by both parties signing a document with a lawyer), not through the Courts. The CP Act specifies in Section 5 the criteria used to govern which classes of relationships can be recognised. It says:
 * (a) the relationship is exclusive in nature
 * (b) the relationship is permanent unless the parties dissolve it through the courts
 * (c) the relationship has been registered under the law of that juristdiction, and
 * (d) the rights and obligations attendant on the relationship are, in the opinion of the Minister, sufficient to indicate that the relationship would be treated comparably to a Civil Partnership
 * So (b) is behind the non-recognition of some relationships. However people who are already in one of those relationships will now be able to enter a Civil Partnership here in Ireland.
 * Yes, this should be added to the article. Calen11 (talk) 20:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Addition of text indicating first civil partnership on Feb 7
I've reverted this, I don't see any news coverage for it at all in the mainstream, Gnews, or LGBT press. Wikipedia is not a breaking news source, we only report here things that are backed by reliable, secondary sources. If it's true, I'm sure there will be reliable coverage of it in the next few hours, and that's more than fast enough. --j &#9883; e deckertalk to me 04:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It is amusing that reliance on mainstream sources would have missed this point altogether, and could easily have lead to an incorrect date being included. The mainstream media had set up to have the first ceremony on April 5th as, given a statutory 3 month notification period, this was the earliest date for a ceremony after the enactment of the law.

However, the law actually allowed ceremonies earlier than this provided a court exemption was given. With such an exemption, the first ceremony happened on the 7th of February unnoticed by the state broadcaster RTÉ, GCN etc. These organizations proceeded to cover the first ceremony in April as the First. On April 2nd, The Late Late Show, RTÉ's flagship talk show, gave a slot to the prospective "first civil partners" for April 5th. Initially, the major news agencies, taking their lead from the Irish media also got it wrong. Subsequently, it was brought to these "reliable mainstream" sources' attention that they had got it wrong and only then did they change direction during the coverage of what was in reality the day of the 6th ceremony. Throughout the day the facts were revised, corrected, reported, misreported, and even occasionally correctly reported numerous times. Indeed, several "reliable" sources have yet to correct their errors.

The only sources that initially had the correct facts were : the Irish Examiner, The Sunday Time [Irish Edition], and The Irish Mail on Sunday - all of whom checked the facts with GRO, the body responsible for maintaining the register of civil partnerships. To the best of my knowledge the earliest of these publications was two weeks after the first ceremony - not the expected fast enough "next few hours". It is also interesting that the other media organizations failed to notice these publications.

So the question becomes, given that the "reliable" and "mainstream" media sources had in this circumstance missed the event, misreported the event, and tried in certain circumstances to try and avoid noticeably correcting their misreporting of the event, is this an appropriate benchmark for editing?

'''It would also seem more appropriate to contact the contributors in such circumstances. Primary sources in such - and I would argue many - circumstances would have proved superior and were available.''' [I note in the guidelines that "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves", this implies that not all sources must be "reliable" secondary sources]

Given : that the nature of the entry was not such that it defamed anyone, that a first ceremony was indeed expected, and that primary source material was available, leaving such a provisional entry could well have helped highlight the issue to the wayward media as they researched the story with a quick delve into wiki.

We should ask ourselves the question : If the April 5th date had been entered and was supported by the "reliable" and "mainstream" media, when, if ever, would the correct date of the 7th of February have been entered?

I know for a fact in these circumstances that certain members of the media were very reluctant to correct the dates even when it was brought to their attention. Formulae of words were sought to allow them to continue with the report without having to acknowledge the earlier ceremonies. "The first official civil partnership", "The first civil partnership took place in public...." etc., etc.

In addition, certain community groups/publications wanted a media event for the "first ceremony" and advertised for those who received the first date to contact them. They didn't receive a response - so the April 5th event was the first one of which they were aware, and that was the one promoted. The earlier events had not had the same publicity. However, the 3rd ceremony had a photospread with names attached in the Irish Mail on Sunday.

SO, as we can see, the criteria we use to insure reliability of the material in Wiki could easily lead to incorrect material being accepted. It would seem appropriate to urge a more nuanced set of rules that would, under strict guidelines, permit the use of primary source material [possibly with a clarifying annotation]. For example : where deformation is not present, where the event/item is expected, where material such as official documents are available in support, and where the provisional nature of the material is annotated. [Indeed, should a conflict remain in similar circumstances the only possible way to resolve it would be to have access to the primary source material such as official documents] We are fortunate in these circumstances that 3 newspapers, albeit tardily, bothered to check the official documents. However, there is no guarantee in similar circumstances that none of the "reliable media" would have caught the event.

Maybe there are no such things as reliable secondary sources, which would imply that no material could be made available through wiki.

In any event these are my thoughts on the issue. Thanks for reading.

Kindest thoughts John. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.33.254 (talk) 04:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The same-sex term
I originally made, which was. I've since, so lets discuss here before undoing me again. Terms like "same-sex relationship" are preferable to "homosexual relationship" for various reasons, some of which are listed in that article. Gabbe (talk) 13:23, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Rename to "Civil partnership in..."?
Should this article not be moved to Civil partnership in the Republic of Ireland, by analogy with Civil partnership in the United Kingdom and all the "Same-sex marriage in X", "Civil union in X" and "Domestic partnership in X" articles? Thoughts? - htonl (talk) 17:51, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The 'KAL' recognition case section
The last sentence in this section needs to be updated to reflect the current status of the case, currently cited as due to be heard in June 2012. Dakamine (talk) 21:25, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi there. I updated it so it should reflect the current situation now. Thanks for pointing it out - A l is o n  ❤ 21:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Public Opinion Section
The public opinion section has become really just a long list of polls. This could be condensed, with the more recent figures staying and maybe some commentary on trends through time (i.e., support for same-sex marriage seems to be steadily increasing over time). Acire93 (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I've removed two references to civil partnerships not giving rights and responsibilities equal to civil marriage
I've had a request for a citation to back up these statements since October of last year. Since no one has provided any source to legitimise this claim I have deleted reference to it until someone comes along with a reliable source to back it up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maring HS (talk • contribs) 18:20, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, didn't spot this on the Talk page until now. Restored, and reference added. Not hard to find a reference, really - surprised it took so long. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)