With the referendum on same-sex marriage proposed to take place in May (we’ll have an in-depth print piece on it all for you this Thursday), Colin Farrell has announced his support for marriage equality.
The Hollywood star from Castleknock has a gay brother, Eamon, and he recalls how he suffered when they were growing up.
“I remember him coming home with blood on his shirt, and he got plenty of beatings and he got just called names continuously........so he had a very very very tough time, a lot of cruelty, like real, absolute shameful cruelty that was placed upon him.”
Colin Farrell was talking to Claire Byrne for her new hour-long current affairs TV programme. The full interview is set to air tonight at 10.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ News Now.
Eamon Farrell married his partner Stephen Mannion in Canada and Colin says:
“To see them every day live their lives as a happily married couple is an amazing thing, and to think that they had to leave their  own country to do that, is sad and disappointing and just grossly unfair I feel.”
Responding to concerns about same-sex couples becoming parents:
“It’s too easy for heterosexuals to be parents, if you want the truth. It’s too easy. There are too many of us who find it too easy to have a kid...
"Too many parents around the world don’t parent their kids, because it was a five minute thing....and there it is. We’re talking about Irish society, being the best version in any referendum, divorce, same sex marriage, being the best version of ourselves that we can be.”
“I carry Ireland with me everywhere I go,” he continues, “And I love my country deeply…This is my coming out of the closet as it were publicly and saying that I support this vote with every fibre of my being.”
Read our Frontlines piece on the upcoming referendum in the first Hot Press of 2015, on sale this Thursday, January 22