Voters in the only Western nation that outlaws divorce decided Friday whether to end the ban. Opinion polls suggest the predominantly Roman Catholic country remains divided, nine years after last rebuffing divorce.
Voters trickled into one polling station at the Dominican National School in suburban south Dublin. Most were senior citizens; one went into the polling booth clutching rosary beads.Most younger voters supported a change.
"I voted yes," said shop owner Deirdre King, 30. "It's time Ireland faced up to reality. We don't live in a hermetically sealed wee country anymore."
In 1986, Ireland voted nearly 2 to 1 against legalizing divorce. This time, all five major political parties back the change, but grassroots opposition remains strong.
More than 2.6 million people are eligible to vote before the polls close at 10 p.m. (3 p.m. MST). The result is to be announced Saturday.
Among the first to vote was President Mary Robinson. She isn't allowed to take a public stand on the issue, but before her election in 1990 she was one of the country's foremost advocates of women's rights and ending church influence over state affairs.
Going against election day traditions, the debate continued Friday on the pages of Ireland's largest paper, the Irish Independent.
"We do not see divorce as a desirable thing. We consider it, at best, a necessary evil. But we believe strongly that greater evils arrive from its absence," the newspaper said in an editorial urging "a `yes' vote, a vote for a second chance."
An estimated 75,000 people in Ireland - about 4 percent of married people - are stuck in broken marriages.
Health Minister Michael Noonan has argued that the main voices in the "no" campaign are those "of middle-aged and older men, both clerical and lay, who . . . wish to keep women in a subordinate role."
Opinion polls show, however, that more women than men favor keeping the divorce ban. Anti-divorce activists had warned that lifting the ban would bring a reward for adulterous husbands and allow women to be ejected from their homes against their will.
Muintir na hEireann, the traditionalist "People of Ireland" party, continued to distribute leaflets Friday pointing out that countries that readily allow divorce suffer high rates of marriage breakdown.