Love story to inspire

“Whether or not one supports Ann Louise and Katherine’s quest for recognition of same-sex marriage, listening to their story is a worthwhile exercise”


Speakers Corner
Denise Horan


THEIRS is not a story of forbidden love. It is a tale of deep, committed, faithful love between two ordinary people, a love whose only yearning is to be expressed in the fullest way possible – through marriage.
That’s where the story of Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan diverges from other great love stories. It’s the obstacles they have faced in completing their togetherness, rather than in getting together, that sets them apart. American-born Katherine and Dublin native, Ann Louise, met in 1981, when their academic paths crossed in Boston College. They fell in love immediately and, within months, had committed to being partners for life. Their friends – those who could safely be told – delighted in their union and in their happiness.
But neither 1980s America nor 1980s Ireland was equipped to deal with a lesbian love affair, nor was either society willing to seek to gain an understanding of what it meant. Same-sex marriage seemed a long way off when they moved to Ireland in 1983 – and it was. So these two academics continued to build a life and a home together in Dublin without announcing their relationship to the world, but not concealing it completely either.
In spite of their busy working lives and the satisfaction of knowing their practical efforts for social justice were making a life-changing difference to so many in West Tallaght (where they initially opened their home for education projects for impoverished women and later established a purpose-built community education centre, An Cosán, in Jobstown), Ann Louise and Katherine still longed for that which would complete their happiness as a couple – marriage.
At the Turas na mBan conference in Westport last week, both women spoke of their fight to have the marriage vows they were finally permitted to take, in Canada in 2003, recognised in Ireland. As Katherine explained, they didn’t just want the rights associated with marriage, they wanted the responsibilities too, and they were living those responsibilities every day of their lives.
They wanted the legal recognition that marriage affords a couple, they wanted the financial security and they wanted their home to be recognised as ‘a family home’ not as a ‘shared home’. “Anyone who has been to our home knows that it is most definitely a family home,” Ann Louise said.
On the Civil Partnership Bill currently being considered in Ireland, Ann Louise was unequivocal: yes, it suits many couples who do not wish to marry, and that is their absolute right, but for those who wish to marry it is not a solution.
The Bill sets up a separate institution for gay and lesbian people, which is not marriage and ‘is not a stepping stone to marriage’, Ann Louise explained. It is a form of segregation, she told her audience, ‘and any institutionalisation of segregation is a retrograde step’. That is why, since 2003, they have been battling to have their marriage recognised here. They have been to the High Court and the Supreme Court and are currently awaiting a final determination from the latter.
Whether or not one supports Ann Louise and Katherine’s quest for recognition of same-sex marriage – or indeed agrees with the concept of such marriage – listening to their story is a worthwhile exercise for everyone. As one person remarked at the conference, it is refreshing to hear people talk so tenderly about marital love, especially after so long together. It’s not something most couples that we deem ‘normal’ do very often.
One of the most beautiful aspects of their story, either as relayed to a live audience or as recorded in their new book ‘Our Lives Out Loud’, is the simplicity of the telling. They have never met with disapproval or negativity in relation to their story, they said, and it is easy to see why. It is told as a love story, their love story, without rancour or animosity. They are not campaigners, just livers of this beautiful story, a story that would be complete in its beauty if they were allowed to marry in the place they call home.
In his foreword to the book, Archbishop Desmond Tutu says: “The aspiration of this book is clearly to offer an understanding of topics that are not often addressed out loud.” That, too, is refreshing.