Category: LGBTQ

The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // 217 with Joseph Healy, London Irish – LGBT Network
The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // 217 with Joseph Healy, London Irish – LGBT Network

I was delighted today to be able to chat to Joseph Healy from the London Irish LGBT Network. The LGBT Network along with Irish in Britain are hosting a conference in London on November 1. The conference is entitled “Equality in Ireland: Past and Present”.

Speakers at the event include:
- Conor McGinn Labour MP for St Helens>
- Clare Moore – Love Equality
- Elisha McCallion MP Sinn Fein
- Dr David Shaw from Liverpool University’s Institute of Irish Studies who has written a book about the Irish political experience in Britain since the 1940s. He will be addressing the issues of how the AIDS epidemic in Ireland and the Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign in Northern Ireland led to significant emigration from both parts of Ireland.
- Dr Joanne McCarthy, Co-author of Identity Formation and Conflict in Older Irish Gay Men.
You can find out more about the event here and you can buy tickets from eventbrite here.

You can find out more about the London Irish LGBT Network on their website, Twitter and Facebook.

The London Ear Show 217 October 20th 2018 // Playlist

1. Paul Noonan: Moth To Your Flame
2. whenyoung: Given Up
3. Bouts: Love’s Lost Landing
4. Pale Rivers: Caught in It
5. O Emperor: Effort
6. Heavy Soda: Greasy Feet
7. Baba: Land of the Damned
8. David Burke: Hello Ocean
9. Robert Grace: Boomerang
10. Chat with Joseph Healy – Chair of London Irish LGBT Network
11. Seamus Fogarty: The Old Suit
12. The Winter Flood: Fire It Up
13. The Survival Code: Take It As It Is
14. Pursued by Dogs: Swap Dimensions

Listen On Demand to The London Ear

Thanks for listening, The London Ear broadcast on DAB radio, Saorview and outside Ireland you can listen online.You can listen to the show again on the RTE player. The show is broadcast every Saturday at 1300.

Don’t forget to check out the RTE 2XM website. You can keep up with me here.

Check out The London Ear on Facebook and Twitter
October 21, 2018
Our Story – An Oral History with London Irish LGBT Network

Over the past year or so, I got to know the gang in the London Irish LGBT Network. Initially, it was because I had one of the members on The London Ear, chatting about an event.

I met some of the people involved at different events and chatting to them. The chair, Joseph asked me to go for a coffee. And that was that! Next you know, I’m on the committee and I’m making a podcast series for the group. It has been a slow process and I’m not finished yet but I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved with this.

It’s not about numbers or views (although lots would be great, let’s be honest), but it’s more about collecting peoples stories and archiving them for the future.

Everyone has a different story, no two life stories are the same and it’s important that we remember that and remember that although it’s a lot easier to live your life as an LGBTQ person now, it wasn’t always that way. Especially if you were from “Holy Catholic Ireland”.

I’ve been speaking to people from all backgrounds, ages, areas of Ireland, finding out about their stories and their lives – in Ireland and in London. It’s also really important to remember that even though technology has advanced, ~~many~~ most people live lots of their lives online. How are we going to archive these stories? We have to become contemporary historians when the people who lived through these eras are still with us.

I knew going into this that there were a number of things that I would have to ensure happened / didn’t happen. I want every interviewee to be free to share as much of their story as they want to. If they want to remain anonymous, so be it. That’s their decision.

I am overwhelmed by the courage of the interviewees to tell their stories and I am truly humbled that they have chosen to entrust their stories with me.

This has also been and continues to be a huge learning curve. So far, I’ve learned about Irish Gay History and about living with HIV and I’m really glad that I have a better understanding of these.

One thing has really struck me that I naively didn’t think happened anymore. A number of younger people were interested in taking part and then backed out. They live their lives, quite openly, here in London. I genuinely thought this didn’t happen anymore. It has made me more determined to speak to as many people as possible for the podcast. We need to still show people that being LGBTQ is normal, we’re just people.

Although the project has started, it’s not over. I’m looking for more Irish LGBT people to tell me their stories. If you want to remain anonymous, you can by all means. I would never force anyone out or reveal their identity if that is their wish. I can change how your voice sounds, if you don’t want people to hear that it’s you, that’s your decision.

It’s so important that we do this now for history preservation and for the lives future generations of LGBTQ people, we need the stories of our struggles told and acknowledged so they don’t have to go through this in the future.

If you’re LGBTQ and Irish, whether you or a parent were born in Ireland, please get in touch. I promise to give your story the attention and respect you deserve.

You can find all podcasts here and you will soon be able to subscribe on iTunes. You can also listen on Mixcloud or below.

August 10, 2018
Norbert Bisky ‘Anomie’ Exhibition Launch // König Gallery London

Norbert Bisky ‘Anomie’ Exhibition Launch // König Gallery London

I got a text from my buddy, Aidan. ‘Hey I’m in London on Friday night, playing with Sam Vance Law at the opening of the Norbert Bisky Exhibition, want to come?’. Of course I do!

I arrived at the König Gallery in Marylebone where the party was in full swing. Launch attendees had spilled out onto the street, inside I could see why. The room was jammed, the band were playing. At the front, close to the band, people were dancing. That also included the artist, Norbert Bisky. Those wanting a chat were further back.

The first thing that I noticed was the space, a basement setting like this in central London is a haven, something really special. The vibrant mis-painted red walls against the concrete brought my eyes to the art.

I was extremely curious to find out why Sam Vance-Law and his band, who had come all the way from Berlin, were playing at an event like this. It turns out that Mr Bisky’s art was used for the cover of Sam’s album, Homotopia. Sam’s music is refreshingly open and honest. The first track on his album refers to asking a boy to dance at a school disco, he’s not afraid to write about his sexuality. The theme of the music, blended beautifully with the theme of the art.

It turns out that this is Norbert Bisky’s first UK solo exhibition. The word ‘anomie’ means the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group. In a piece taken from the Köning website:
“how inclusive a society is towards members of the LGBTQI+ community is still highly indicative of the degree to which humanist values are accepted in a society and to which members of this society are able to live autonomous lives.”

You can read in full about Bisky’s ideas here.

As the band ended and crowds left, I wait for my friend and getting a closer look at each painting.

The red walls are deliberate. The canvas on the walls, on closer inspection, reveal layers and collages. The bright pastel colours, different parts of the male form and one piece where three makes share a kiss, make me recall Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s reworking of Coleridge’s poem ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasuredome erect’.

This was the first time I had seen Norbert Bisky’s paintings and I adored his work. I also loved how some of the pieces were completed mere weeks before this exhibition began. Making it very relevant and very now.

The exhibition runs until May 19 2018.

Sam Vance Law and band

Photos were taken with my crappy Samsung S5

April 13, 2018
You Never Stop Coming Out as LGBTQ. Ever.

Coming Out Again and Again…

Something happened last week. Within the space of a couple of hours, I had to explain to a work colleague who Talulah was. Then, a while later on Messenger, an old friend asked if I was in a relationship with a girl.

I had to come out, again, twice. It occurred to me, once you come out once as LGBTQ, you never stop. You have you keep coming out for the rest of your days.

I hear you say that I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I am exaggerating. Once you get over the initial telling people you’re LGBTQ, your family, friends, work colleagues, you start getting used to telling people. But, there’s still always that little nervousness. In my case, especially at work.

I’m not the kind of person who goes round shouting it from the roof tops. To be honest, it’s none of anyone’s business. I’m not a fan of labelled anything. If you’re straight and don’t tell people about your significant other, you’re private. If you’re LGBTQ, you’re in the closet.

First up, we’re in the pub after work and one guy asks if I would like another drink. I say no thanks, I’ve just texted Talulah and I’m on the way home. He enquires who Talulah is. When I say my girlfriend, he’s slightly taken aback. He goes on to mention that I don’t mention her in the office. I’m not hiding, it’s just my colleague wasn’t at last year’s Christmas party and it’s not an issue so no one felt the need to tell my colleague.

Smalltown Girl

Later that night, I get home to a message from an old friend. Someone I haven’t seen in years. We never fell out, just life got in the way and we drifted different directions. On a Friday night with a few drinks in, they mention how life turns out different to what we thought it would. Then there’s a casual ‘I take it you’re in a relationship with a girl, maybe I’m wrong’.

This was something I had kinda been dreading for years, I have my life now and I’m out and proud of who I am. But there’s still previous lifetime stuff, people you were you friends with then, what would then think, would they care? Ireland was a very different place in the 1990s. I tell her about Talulah. We’re together, seventeen years. The reaction was one ‘Did you know when we were friends that you liked girls? You should have said. I hope you are very happy. We should meet up sometime.’

There it was. The reaction a small town girl wanted and didn’t know she’d get in the early nineties. I got it now, twenty five years later. Sometimes, you lose track of people, you lose touch. You make new friends who don’t know the previous lifetime you. They know you now. They didn’t know the struggles to get to be who you are now.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what these people think of you, it’s you that needs to be happy with you. But when the past catches with the present and the two exist happily together. That’s always a good feeling.

You can listen to an interview I did on Talk Radio about coming out here

September 10, 2017