LGBTQ rights in the Republic of Ireland
rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Republic of Ireland

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights in the Republic of Ireland are regarded as some of the most progressive in Europe and the world. Ireland is notable for its transformation from a country holding conservative attitudes toward LGBTQ issues, in part due to the opposition by the Roman Catholic Church, to one holding overwhelmingly liberal views in the space of a generation. In May 2015, Ireland became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage on a national level by popular vote. The New York Times declared that the result put Ireland at the "vanguard of social change". Since July 2015, transgender people in Ireland can self-declare their gender for the purpose of updating passports, driving licences, obtaining new birth certificates, and getting married. Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised in 1993, and most forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation are now outlawed. Ireland also forbids incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation. Article 41 of the Constitution of Ireland explicitly protects the right to marriage irrespective of sex.
In 2015, a survey of 1,000 individuals in Ireland found that 78% of people supported same-sex marriage and 71% of people thought that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt. In the same-sex marriage referendum result of the same year, 62% of voters supported same-sex marriage.
“LGBTQ rights in the Republic of Ireland” enters the record as rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Republic of Ireland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what LGBTQ, rights and Republic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q130643. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 1993.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “LGBTQ rights in the Republic of Ireland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.