Ireland registers win with 66.4% to overturn abortion ban

Yes campaigners celebrate the official result at Dublin Castle. Pics/AFP

Ireland voted overwhelmingly on Friday to overturn the country's abortion ban, after counting on Saturday revealed a landslide victory for the yes vote - 66.4 per cent - to repeal the stringent Eighth Amendment in a landmark referendum. Until now, abortion was only allowed when a woman's life was at risk, but not in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality, the BBC reported.

Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the referendum result marked "the day Ireland stepped out from under the last of our shadows and into the light". It was "the day we came of age as a country" and "the day we took our place among the nations of the world".

Leo Varadkar

Referencing poet Maya Angelou's words that history "cannot be unlived" but "if faced with courage, need not be lived again", Varadkar said: "The wrenching pain of decades of mistreatment of Irish women cannot be unlived. However, today we have ensured that it does not have to be lived again."

A large crowd gathered in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, where the official result was announced, to celebrate. The only constituency to vote against repealing was Donegal. While the two main parties of Ireland, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, did not take official positions on the referendum, politicians were permitted to campaign on a personal basis and Varadkar had been campaigning in favour of a yes vote.

Thousands of Irish people living abroad flew home to cast their vote. The #hometovote push online grew steadily for several days leading up to the vote, as Irish citizens boarded planes in Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and from all across Europe and the UK.