Places where friendships are formed and communities are born. Places where we could imagine the exhilaration of liberty and know what it is like to touch another person of the same sex without fear of rancour or violence. Deprived of public places to meet and socialise, safe spaces where we could slough off our oppression, we built our own dance floors and shebeens. The existence of British Victorian legislation criminalising sexual intimacy between men not only sent consenting adults to prison but, in the minds of some, legitimised homophobia and states of exclusion that would endure right up to Marriage Equality in 2015.Īnd yet, possibility seemed boundless, even in poor, drab 1980s Dublin a city, like Cork and Belfast, bereft of a commercial gay scene. Lesbian mothers were routinely denied access and custody of their children in cases of separation. At worst, any indication of ‘gayness’ was an invitation to a hiding. At best, one could be refused service in a bar or denied promotion at work. Positive role models in media or pop culture were few and far between. At the start of that decade, Ireland’s nascent LGBT civil rights movement was becoming more visible and vocal.
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