In an international survey ranking gay-friendly nations around the world, Ireland has polled ninth, with the Netherlands and Spain topping the list.
Respondents to the survey were asked whether or not they believed their city/area was a good place to live for gay and lesbian members of the community. In Ireland, 77 percent of those surveyed answered yes.
The rest of the top 10 list is dominated almost entirely by European countries; 87 percent of Dutch and Spanish respondents also said yes, while Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom also feature.
Canada, the only country outside of Europe to make the top 10, polled third with 84 percent answering affirmatively.
The survey draws on information gather from face-to-face interviews conducted with more than 1,000 people over the age of 15 across 124 countries. The interviews were carried out in 2014, long before Ireland voted to extend marriage to same-sex couples in a referendum on May 23rd.
While Senegal, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan ranked as the worst places in which to live as a homosexual, the survey did not include data from a number of countries, including China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Malaysia and several others in the Middle East and Central Asia, where homosexuality is illegal.
