RODDY DOYLE HAS surfaced as a eloquent voice on the Yes side of the upcoming marriage referendum.

He’s used the likes of Game of Thrones and Cristiano Ronaldo to argue for a yes vote on Facebook, in short stories than immediately went viral. His popular page usually contains a unique take on Irish life, aided by snippets of conversation between two men in a pub.

His latest Facebook post is his most touching yet, told from the perspective of a man who remembers the tough time he was pressured into giving a gay classmate in the past.

Here’s the full thing, which has been shared over a thousand times since it went online this evening:

-One of me sons came ou’ there earlier.
-Fuckin’ hell – . How d’you feel about tha’?
-Wha’?
-Your son, like. How did he come ou’?
-Through the back door. Same as the rest of us.
-Hang on – . He came ou’ the back?
-Yeah.
-You’re fuckin’ messin’ with me again, aren’t yeh?
-No, I’m not. Me son came ou’ for a chat. We were ou’ on the deck.
-Yis have a deck?
-Yeah.
-Since when?
-Since one o’ the grandkids took a pallet from behind the Spar an’
threw it on top o’ the fuckin’ grass. But – come here. Isn’t it fuckin’
amazin’ tha’ we can have a chat like this?
-Abou’ decks?
-No – abou’ comin’ ou’ an’ our kids an’ stuff like tha’. Not so long
ago –
-It would’ve been impossible.
-Well – not impossible. But – .
-Fuckin’ tricky.
-Very fuckin’ tricky. But – . More. There was a fella in my class in
school an’ – words like ‘gay’ an’ ‘camp’ didn’t exist back then the way
they do now. But he got a terrible fuckin’ time – from the the teachers
an’ the Brothers. Called him Twinkle-Toes an’ stuff like tha’. They
never let up – they battered him. An’ we laughed. We had to – I
remember thinkin’ tha’. Or they’d’ve murdered us as well.
-Wha’ was his real name?
-Jim. I was thinkin’ about him there. Wonderin’ – yeh know – how he
was. An’ that’s another reason I’ll be votin’ Yes.
-Why?
-Well –
-Apologisin’.
-Yeah – yeah. I suppose so.
-Same as meself, so.

Roddy Doyle wrote a great short story about marriage equality, and it’s going viral>

Roddy Doyle just used Game of Thrones to argue in favour of same-sex marriage>