[3] The British Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which made "unlawful procurement of a miscarriage" a crime, remained in force after Irish independence in 1922.

[4] In 1992, Supreme Court ruled in the X Case that abortion is permitted where pregnancy threatens a woman's life, including by risk of suicide.

No regulatory framework within the limited scope of the X case judgement was passed until the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, impelled by A, B and C v Ireland (2010) in the European Court of Human Rights and death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 after miscarriage.

In the 2010s, while both parties' leadership opposed broad liberalisation, some accepted the argument for abortion in cases like fatal foetal abnormalities and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, which are not permitted by the 1983 amendment.

[16] A Fine Gael–led government under Taoiseach Enda Kenny took office after the 2016 election with a programme which promised a randomly selected Citizens' Assembly to report on possible changes to the Eighth Amendment, which would be considered by an Oireachtas committee, to whose report the government would respond officially in debates in both houses of the Oireachtas.

[17] The Citizens' Assembly, chaired by Supreme Court judge Mary Laffoy,[18] discussed the issue from November 2016 to April 2017 with invited experts and stakeholders, and voted to recommend repealing the existing text and replacing it with an explicit mandate for the Oireachtas to legislate on abortion.

[22] In January 2018, Minister for Health Simon Harris opened the Dáil debate on the committee's report by listing the numbers from each county who travelled to Great Britain for an abortion in 2016.

[23] Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin declared that he had changed his view on the issue and gave his support for Repeal of the Eighth Amendment and for the committee's recommendations.

[24] Further action was called into question by a July 2016 High Court ruling that a foetus was a child within the meaning of Article 42A of the Constitution, which guarantees children's rights.

As the Amendment passed, the subsection was replaced with the following text: The Department of Health published a policy paper on "Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy" on 9 March 2018.

[27] This provided an outline of the policies for legislation which would repeal and replace the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 if the Amendment of Constitution Bill was passed in a referendum.

[28][29] On 27 March 2018, the cabinet agreed the general scheme of the proposed "Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill 2018", which health minister Simon Harris summarised that evening in the Seanad.

[33] Health Minister Simon Harris, speaking a few days before the referendum, said the Government hoped to introduce the bill in the Dáil in the autumn and to have passed it by the end of 2018.

[51][52] On 9 May, Google announced that it was blocking all adverts on the referendum from its advertising platform and YouTube, citing concerns around the integrity of elections.

[56] On 23 May, CNN reported that American-based anti-abortion groups, such as "Let Them Live", have flown to Ireland, in order to sway voters to vote No to the amendment.

[59] The use of the #HomeToVote hashtag was part of a larger campaign effort from activists who utilised social media, particularly Twitter, to connect and communicate with citizens.

[60] Together for Yes used social media to highlight the lived experiences of women endangered by the abortion ban,[61] placing what was viewed as a private issue into the public to "mobilise emotions" online, in the hope that they would vote "Yes".

[62] A number of political parties, religious bodies and other organisations took a freedom of conscience vote or position, calling on individual members to decide for themselves.

Twelve offshore islands voted the day before, to allow for possible delays delivering ballot boxes to the count centres.

The details were: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: "I think what we've seen today really is the culmination of a quiet revolution that's taken place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years.

Presuming that these exit polls are correct, the public haven't just spoken, this is a resounding roar from Irish people about the horrors of the Eighth and how women should no longer be treated as second-class citizens in our society.

"[129] This statement caused controversy, leading to former President of Ireland Mary McAleese weighing in to say that baptised voters showed that freedom of conscience trumped the Church's view of mortal sin.

[130][131] UK Prime Minister Theresa May contacted Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and posted to Twitter, saying: "The Irish Referendum yesterday was an impressive show of democracy which delivered a clear and unambiguous result.

[133] Senior Conservatives, such as Commons Health Committee chairperson Sarah Wollaston and education minister Anne Milton, backed calls for a free vote on the issue, while Labour MP Stella Creasy said she would table an amendment on the matter to the Domestic Violence Bill and said that over 150 parliamentarians had expressed support for the change, and Labour's shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti called the issue a test for May's feminism.

[134] In Belfast, a rally took place advocating for the liberalisation of abortion laws in Northern Ireland,[135] where there were calls for the UK government to step in.

[146] On 20 July, Justice Peter Kelly ruled against the other two applicants, saying they had failed to provide prima facie evidence of anything likely to have changed the result of the vote,[148] but left them a week to challenge this in the Court of Appeal.

[33] After the referendum, there were calls for the process to be sped up,[158] and health minister Simon Harris said that the bill would be introduced before the summer recess and become law by the autumn.

[166] On 5 December, the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill passed final stages in the Dáil, where it was approved by 90 votes to 15 (with 12 abstentions).

On 20 December 2018, President Michael D. Higgins signed the bill into law, officially legalising abortion in Ireland for the first time for non-life-threatening reasons.