Mark O’Looney and Eoin Cannon always wanted to be parents. They met 10 years ago when O’Looney auditioned for a part in a musical that Cannon was directing — he didn’t get the part but he did find the love of his life. They migrated from Dublin to New York City in 2018 and got married in a quiet ceremony in Central Park in 2021. Halfway through building their dream family, they found that fatherhood would be a double-edged sword — the birth of their daughter through surrogacy in the US meant that their family continues to be unrecognised in Ireland.