Irish abortion referendum: yes wins with 66.4% – as it happened

Three more Dublin results are in:

• Dublin-Fingal, 76.96% yes, 23.04% no
  
• Dublin Rathdown 76.10% yes, 23.90% no
• Dublin South-West 74.91% yes, 25.09% no

More from Sinéad Baker at the Together for Yes festivities in Dublin:

Those who flew home to vote are well represented at the yes campaign’s official gathering to watch the results.

I talked to Hannah Little, a co-founder of the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, two weeks ago in London and then she spoke of the importance of the result for many of the Irish living abroad.

“A lot of people have plans to go home and have a family,” she said. “I think this referendum will signal whether Ireland is a country we want to bring children up in.”

Catching up with her at today’s event, she said that today’s result would “absolutely” hearten Irish women around the world. “It shows us the country has grown up and matured. It cares about women.”

A lot women that I’ve spoken to today have expressed similar sentiments. “I’m proud to be Irish,” is a common refrain.

Dublin West has voted 74.02% for yes, 25.98% for no

Back in Roscommon, Lisa O’Carroll has met more cheerful voters – and one not so happy.

The DUP has spoken, and it’s not happy about the prospect of abortion law reform in Northern Ireland:

Another clutch of results, still all one-way traffic:

• Dún Laoghaire 77.06% yes, 22.94% no
• Dublin Bay North 74.69% yes, 25.31% no
• Dublin South-Central 74.79%, 25.21%

26 May 201810.43 EDT

Henry McDonald

Henry McDonald sounds a note of caution about abortion reform coming any time soon to Northern Ireland:

It is not as simple as Theresa May and the British government deciding to impose or extend the 1967 Abortion Act to the region – the only part of the UK where terminations in most cases are illegal in local hospitals.

Devolution is currently in suspended animation in a traditional orange-green row over an Irish Language Act and other cultural issues and even if the Northern Ireland assembly was restored, a majority of members oppose abortion reform especially on the unionist benches.

Pro-abortion reform parliamentarians at Westminster such as Stella Creasy could move a private member’s bill in this hiatus period of de facto direct rule from London. But when this was tried recently by another Labour MP for gay marriage equality (another social reform blocked principally by the DUP), backbench Tories refused to cooperate and the private bill fell by the wayside.

It is hard to see too how May’s minority Conservative government would agree to a free vote on introducing abortion into Northern Ireland given the power the DUP exercises at Westminster where its votes keep her in No 10 Downing Street.

The DUP would be highly likely to exert its parliamentary muscle to pressurise the Tories not to back any Labour sponsored private member’s bill when it came to the abortion question. The abortion controversy on the island of Ireland will rage on, albeit only now on the northern side of the Irish border.

Over half the constituency results are now in, and the count stands at 66% and 34%, on a record turnout of 63.9%.

The national broadcaster RTÉ says the final national results should be announced within an hour.

Two more:

• Meath West 63.95% yes, 36.05% no
• Galway West 65.95% yes, 34.05% no

Some readers who’ve got in touch with the Guardian have described how difficult the referendum campaign has been because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Michelle, a writer and mother of two young boys who lives in Dublin, says she was one of the “silent” yes voters:

I was one of those women, partly because of the very conservative workplace that I am employed in of but also because I did not want to offend no voters, who did not discuss my opinions. Why, I wonder now, did I not feel comfortable to speak out, to be honest, to loudly shout how passionately I felt about the need for yes? Because I grew up in an Ireland that diminished the rights of women, punished women for being unmarried mothers and in some cases incarcerated those women and removed their children from them.

When she heard the result, Michelle said:

I felt like a weight had lifted, that shame and stigma surrounding so many women in my own family had been wiped away. It was acceptable at last for a woman to make her own decisions and live her life without judgment.

Kate, a scientist and mother living in rural Ireland, said she voted yes, but reluctantly:

Yes is the right decision but discussion needs to continue regarding support for women in Ireland. We need to examine our society at a deeper level and have more discussion about factors such as contraception, social housing ... mental health. Abortion is the last resort for women. I would like to see both sides working together now to make family life better in this country and abortion as rare as possible.

If you’d like to share your reaction, you can do so here.

It looks like Donegal is shaping up to be the only place to spoil the yes campaign’s party, reportedly by a very slender margin: