Earlier in the week, Ireland AM's Alan Hughes took the opportunity to propose to his parter of 22 years, Karl Broderick, during a segment on the recently passed Marriage Referendum. It was a lovely moment, which saw a flurry of congratulatory tweets fly in. 

Not everyone was filled with the warm and fuzzys, with RTE's resident answer to Mario Rosenstock chiming in with this segment from his regular newspaper column: ""That gay people, amid a supposed spirit of equality, are now choosing to mimic any ghastly wedding custom is embarassing. After years of celebrating difference, it turns out they want to be as bland and crass as everyone else."

Alan was quick to respond, telling The Irish Daily Mirror: "This is coming from the guy who came out on a Saturday night chat show? If that's not attention seeking, I don't know what is... He obviously needs to sell tickets for his tour but if that's the type of bitter old queen we have in Ireland, then I don't know. I pity his boyfriend. Oliver needs a reality check."

According to the Independent, the reason behind Alan's very public proposal was to help show younger members of the LGBTQ community that Ireland is a changed country, after reading startling statistics which revealed that "20pc of all young LGBT couples had attempted suicide at some point."

Of the stats, Hughes said: "I thought that was horrible and I wanted to show other gay people that if we’re able to propose live on TV, maybe then they’ll have the courage to come out to their mam or dad or their friends. They were just horrible statistics to see."

Callan has since tweeted with the below in the last few minutes, using the opportunity to plug his column.Â