New first for ‘Irish Times’ Social & Personal column

A marriage announcement in the Social & Personal column of The Irish Times has been widely shared this weekend as a first since the same-sex marriage referendum.

The announcement of Leo O’Shaughnessy and Mark Kinsella’s marriage is the first formal announcement, in the section, of a same-sex engagement since the marriage equality referendum was passed in May.

The parents of IT consultant, Mr O'Shaughnessy (44) and Mr Kinsella (43), a fund accountant at Bank of Ireland Life - together since 5th June 1995 - announced "with delight" their sons' engagement and the wedding is planned for 2016.

“People say ‘you’ve waited 20 years, what’s another two?’ but we just want to do this now,” says Mr O’Shaughnessy who first proposed in 2002.

"We were living in Australia and I asked Mark would he marry me if we could. He said 'of course'. But back then it was a moot point because there was nowhere we could actually get married."

They decided against Civil Partnership when it was introduced here in 2010.

“We always said we’d wait for full marriage”, says Mr O’Shaughnessy, “We want what everyone has and if we couldn’t have that, we were happy the way we were. Not to denigrate what other people in civil partnerships have, but for us it wouldn’t have been enough.

“Plus, there was no real benefit for us to get CP’d. We were comfortable that our families were accepting enough of us that if anything happened to one of us, they’d make sure we were looked after.”

Mr O’Shaughnessy credits his parents, Charlie and Kate O’Shaughnessy and Mark’s mother, Yvonne, and his late father Clem Kinsella, for their support.

“We’re very lucky. I know there are people out there who aren’t as lucky as we are. My family accepted me from very early on and what really helped is that when they met Mark they fell in love with him immediately.”

Despite canvassing extensively for the 'Yes' side during the marriage equality campaign, Mr O'Shaughnessy and Mr Kinsella were in California for polling day.

“We’d booked the holiday a year before. I was in Tahoe when I read the ‘Home To Vote’ stuff,” says Mr O’Shaughnessy. “I was in floods of tears all day”.

“I woke up at 6am on May 24th, which was 2pm Irish time and by that stage it looked like the referendum was going to pass.

Mark was still asleep so I flicked his ear to wake him, told him it looked like it was going our way and for the second time, asked if he would do me the honour of marrying me.”

The last three weeks have been taken up with venue scouting.

They initially decided on next year’s June bank holiday weekend as a wedding date to mark their 21st anniversary, but the couple who live in Dublin 8 are now dealing with the mundane fact that most venues are booked up at least two years in advance.

“It’s stressful because we want to get it right”, says Mr O’Shaughnessy.

“Most of our friends are straight and we’ve spent the last 20 years going to their weddings. They say, ‘you’ve been talking about this for 20 years so here it is - it better be the best day ever’”.

No pressure then? Not really.

Most important to both is that, “we have everybody we love there in the full of their health to enjoy the day. To mark our day and to mark the maturity that our country has achieved.

“Then we can finally put this part of our lives behind us.”