IT was 2001, and a lovely occasion was being celebrated in a family home in Clontarf. There was a card, a cake and champagne, in tribute to the fact that youngest daughter Joan O'Connell had just come out as gay to her family.

"I was lucky to have a family that not only was so supportive, but made it an extra-special occasion," says Joan, now 27.

The actual coming out happened by accident, while Joan was studying law in college in 2001. Her older sister Barbara, a primary school teacher, was on a night out, and heard through a friend of a friend about the great work her sister was doing as a facilitator with a gay youth group. She told Joan what she had heard, and assured her that she loved her, as did her mother, Ann Cooney, the next morning.

Later that day, her dad Tom walked into the room, pausing to ask a perplexed Joan if she liked his new jumper. And then he popped his head back around the door and said, "You know we love you anyway."

The loving, supportive reaction they all had came as a huge relief to Joan, because she and her mum are painfully aware that not every gay person comes out to such a warm, affectionate reaction. Joan worked for many years as a facilitator with a gay youth group, for which she won an award, and Ann is very involved in the parents' support group, Look (Loving Our Out Kids, www.lovingour outkids.org).

Ann is originally from Longford, and she and her identical twin sister are the oldest of nine children. She is a sculptor, mainly working in bronze, and her twin Loretto Cooney is an artist.

Ann taught clay sculpture and ceramics at St Joseph's School for the Visually Impaired for eight years, and has had many exhibitions here and abroad. Some of her pieces are currently at the Leinster Gallery, and she created the large public piece at the Waterside development in Malahide.

"I remember it was very busy at home at times, as Mum sometimes taught art classes for adults and children," says Joan. "I would often go in and steal little pieces of her materials to make things too."

"Joan was very creative too and was always drawing in her journal," recalls Ann. "She was very lively, and would get into all kinds of scrapes with her cousin Lisa. Joan has always been quite reserved and private, even as a child. Her sister Barbara was much more flamboyant."

When Joan was in secondary school, she began to suspect that she might be gay, but didn't say anything as she had to come to terms with her own confused feelings.

"Mum and Dad have always been very open-minded and supportive," says Joan. "So there was nothing to suggest that they wouldn't have reacted well if I'd told them."

When she was 16, Joan saw an ad for a youth group run by outhouse, the resource and community centre for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities (www.outhouse.ie).

She plucked up the courage to go along, and the facilitator and peer support she received there proved to be a turning point for her.

When Joan was only about 15 or 16, Ann began to strongly suspect that her younger daughter might be gay.

"I don't know how I knew, but I had some inkling, even by her posters on her wall," she says. "And as she got older, I just knew. I often wondered afterwards if it would have been better if I had said it to her myself, but she told me that she needed to come out to herself first. It's just that I'd like to have given her as much support as possible."

Ann believes that if education could bring children to a place where they were not fearful of the idea of being gay, it would make things so much easier for them to confide in their families.

"As it was, I was worried for Joan, in terms of the discrimination and inequalities she might face," she says. "I believe that my daughter was born of me gay, and as a parent, I have a responsibility to look after her and support her through it all."

Ann joined the Parents' Support group, now known as Look, and she is now very much involved with helping and supporting parents of gay children.

"Joan was the catalyst, because I was inspired when I saw what she had done to help other people when she was so young herself," she says. "She is a very loving daughter, with a wonderful sense of humour and is great to be around. I love what I see in her and how she has developed."

Joan is now in a happy two-year relationship with her girlfriend Shauna, and works as a paralegal with a statutory body. She also contributes to the blog, www.gaelick.com.

In the wake of the recently published civil partnership bill, she and Ann fully support next Sunday's March for Marriage. They are urging everyone in favour of the introduction of same-sex marriages, (67 per cent of Irish people, according to the latest research), to come and lend their support.

"I love my daughters equally, and as a parent, the idea that a child you love is not able to live their life like anybody else is very difficult," says Ann, referring to the fact that Joan will not be allowed to legally marry a same-sex partner here. And any children they may have will not be afforded the same legal rights and protection as the children of heterosexual couples.

"And, I think that, as a society, if we care for the rest of our children, we have to care for our gay children in the very same way," she says.

March for Marriage, Sunday August 9. Assemble beside City Hall, Dublin, at 1.30pm and march to the Department of Justice on St Stephen's Green. Confirmed speakers include broadcaster Brendan Courtney, Niall Crowley, former director of the Equality Authority, and Patricia Prendeville, former executive director of ILGA, International Gay and Lesbian Association, Europe. Further information from www.lgbtnoise.ie

- Andrea Smith