So it was somewhat a surprise when after a 10-year campaign to change its constitution to allow same sex marriage, the country voted yes at a referendum.

However, as Irishman Tiernan Brady tells it, nothing really changed at all. Ireland was still a country of deep faith; its values remained unaltered. All that changed was a law that discriminated against a group of people in society. 

If anything, Brady maintains, the constitutional change brought Ireland into step with its own Christian values. The man who was one of the architects of the the marriage equality movement shares campaign anecdotes laced with trademark Irish humour.

There was the time two campaigners knocked on a door in the country. A little old lady answered and her husband’s gruff voice boomed from inside. 

“Who’s at the door?” he thundered.

"It’s the queers.”

“Tell em of course I’m voting yes. And tell em I’m already taken.” 

However, Brady’s message carries plenty of serious intent. He tells achingly sad stories of gay men forced to leave their families and emigrate to the other side of the world because of who they were. 

He also reveals how the at times painful national conversation in Ireland was especially hard on the children of same sex couples who were exposed to the intolerance.

Australia need not go through the same painful process. Repeated opinion polls show most people are in favour of reforming the Marriage Act. A survey conducted by Gilmore MP Ann Sudmalis mirrored that sentiment but she still insists on a non-binding and expensive plebiscite. Reform does not need a plebiscite or referendum – just an act of parliament.

Shelley Hancock and Gareth Ward, both Liberals, favour parliamentary reform. It’s why they attended the forum in Bomaderry on Wednesday night at which Tiernan Brady spoke, and which was attended by other Liberals, Greens and Labor members. It was a rainbow alliance of people ready to cooperate to bring Australia into line on this question of basic human equality.