Colin Murphy: How the Yes was won - for all of us

On the first anniversary of the marriage referendum, there is much the left can learn from a campaign founded on real coalition

LGBT people were presented as members of families and communities, not advocates demanding rights Picture: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty

This day a year ago, the people voted to give gay and lesbian people the right to get married. In retrospect, it all seems so straightforward: a right denied too long; a country that was happy to grant it; a campaign that was largely seamless.

But a series of books about the campaign paint a different picture: one of a cause that, for a long time, seemed vastly improbable, and a campaign that ...