The great Irish confusion

I'm starting to believe that Irish are very confused about their...hm...I don't even know how to define it...gender definitions. While they seem this very religious state with strong laws that have a religious background - like abortion, or the fact that all schools here still belong to the church and are built around churches - there are these small details that make you wonder. These small details are actually very strong contradictions that definitely reflect confusion.

To give a bit of background, in Ireland there is an ancestral fight between protestants and catholics. This fight started because each of these religions identified with the status of the people - conquerer (English) or conquered (Irish). This means that the poor Irish (the actual inhabitants of this land) are catholics, while the rich English (the ones who just thought they can claim any land) are protestants. These poor - rich gaps are still visible today - a colleague from Romania was telling me about her two kids (orthodox) who she had to enroll in different schools - one is in a catholic school while the other in a protestant one. The schools are across the street one from the other. While it was obviously very easy to enroll one of them to the Catholic school, she had to be put on a waiting list for the protestant school. Her luck is that she belongs to neither of these religions, so other selection criteria were considered...because otherwise it is really difficult to go to a school that doesn't have your religion....almost impossible. The other thing is related to the richness of the protestants - their clothes, the cars the kids are being brought it etc.

Anyway, now here are the contradictions that have me totally confused:

gay marriage is legal;

they are among the states that recognize trans-gender as an official gender;

they are very open about homosexuality - celebrating with pride and not hiding it in public;

they are considering the legalization of marijuana.

...very open right?! But then...

abortion is illegal;

at the gym there is a special "room" for girls who want to do fitness - you can also do it in the general room, but in case you don't want to, you can go in your ladies' corner;

high school is usually gender defined - there are few mixed schools with both boys and girls;

my friend mentioned above was asked if she is worried about that her sons reached the age when he should go alone to the toilet in public places and other men might look at him :))

This weird transition period when it comes to religion and gender roles is very confusing, and this is not really a place to raise children right now.