If confirmed the shock result would underline the speed and scale of change in a country that is majority Catholic.
Exit polls from the Irish Times and the national broadcaster RTÉ showed a clear two-thirds of the country supported change. Dublin, as expected, had voted overwhelmingly to end the abortion ban (77%), but so too did rural areas that anti-abortion activists had counted on to form a bulwark of conservative support for the restrictive status quo.
The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll late on Friday suggested a 68% to 32% vote in favour of yes. The RTE exit poll of 3,000 voters suggested that 69.4% voted yes in the referendum compared with 30.6% who said no.
Friday’s good weather and strong feelings about the subject contributed to a high turnout across the country. The Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who supported the change and called the referendum a once-in-a-generation chance, said earlier on Friday that he was quietly confident that the high turnout was a good sign.
Counting opens across the country at 9 am on Saturday, with tallies expected to give a confident indication of the result by mid-morning or lunchtime and an official result to follow in the afternoon.
