Gay Old Times

We may have lost the battle, sweets, but the war is far from over! lisped an unofficial lady-in-waiting from the court of the Queens.
Jerry Lisker was writing in the New York Daily News on July 6, 1969. His report was a follow-up on the Stonewall riots, which occurred after the New York police raided the now infamous Stonewall Inn, a private gay club in Greenwich Village. Referred to as a sort of lavender Bastille Day , the riots, which had their thirtieth anniversary last month, are acknowledged as the official commencement of the gay liberation movement, a landmark event on the road to gay militancy.
Bill Hughes was 14 when the riots took place. As a teenager growing up in Athy, he remembers how the Irish media cast only a cursory glance over events as they unfolded in New York. But, he recalls, over the next year or two, there was definitely a new-found ability to speak out and say Yes, I am homosexual, yes, I am proud .
Nevertheless, it wasn t easy for people of Bill s generation to come to a mature view of sexuality.
He was, he admits, obsessed with trying to come to terms with his sexuality. Not trying to be sexual, he elucidates, but trying to understand what it was that was going on in my head that seemed so at odds with what all my friends were experiencing.
In the austerity of rural Ireland in the 60s and 70s, coming out was genuinely traumatic for most. Although hugely supportive of him when he told them, at 17, what was going on in his life, Hughes parents thought that the best way of dealing with his problem was to send him to a psychiatrist, whose dismissive response was, Oh, it s just a phase you re going through .
Unsurprisingly, efforts to force Hughes to suppress his sexual urges proved fruitless, and after finishing his time in an all-boys boarding school, he, like many other gay young men and women, felt compelled to leave Ireland.
His full sexual awakening happened in England, which, in relative terms, was more open towards homosexuality. But still there was massive hypocrisy and discrimination at work. Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party, was forced to resign in 1975 amid rumours of his alleged relationship with Norman Scott, a former male model; prosecutions for Gross Indecency between homosexuals were rife as a result of police entrapment; and gay bashings were all too commonplace.
But compared to Ireland, explains Hughes, it was brilliant. Number one, you realised you weren t alone, and number two, you realised the various strands of gay society the mincing queens and the guys who dressed up, as well as the ordinary guys from the country and from the city who were less obvious about it.
This scenario seemed a lifetime away from what was going on in Ireland. Here, in 1974, Jonie Crone, a twenty-six year old writer and gay activist, became the first home-grown lesbian to brandish her sexuality on national TV, at the behest of Uncle Gaybo, on The Late Late Show. She caused an uproar.
The following year, the true hypocrisy of Irish society was proudly displayed at the funeral of one of the country s favourite and most acknowledged gay thespians, Micheal Mac Liammoir. The entire Irish cabinet, and the then President Patrick Hillery, walked forward to shake hands with Hilton Edwards, MacLiammoir s lover, acknowledging him as the grieving widow . It was a classic example of double standards: many of those same politicians stood directly in the way of having the legislation amended to decriminalise such homosexual relationships. It took another 18 years before this was to happen.
But in 1999, how far have we come in terms of our enlightenment? When Boyzone s Stephen Gately declared his sexual proclivities last month, the largely positive reaction was looked upon as another feather in the cap for Ireland s gay community. But is it that easy for others?
Derek McCann (21), who came out five years ago, believes that society has become a lot more accepting of gays over the past few years.
But I still know a few people who are struggling with it, who don t want to be gay, and don t understand why they are, he says. That happened earlier for me, a few years ago, but now I am at a stage where I am happy with it.
Brendan Courtney (28), is often surprised at the positive reaction he and his partner of five years get on the bus or in the street.
The odd time you ll get abuse, he says, but a lot of the time, these little guys in Tallaght, or wherever, will look at us and then shout over Are you se gay? . But, unlike before, it s not in an aggressive way.
So, is the Cold War finally over? Can Ireland s gay community finally dream of halcyon days where society accepts them and respects them as valid and important contributors to Irish life? Hughes documentary might, in some way, help in this regard.
But I am not the definitive historian, he points out. I have not set out to make an important programme. I ve just set out to help on the road to enlightenment. God, I sound like a Buddhist! n
The climate in Ireland during the early 70s was less than supportive of the gay population. Bill Hughes believes that things are very different today. Reflecting this, he has been commissioned by RTE, as part of their Millennium programming, to produce a documentary celebrating a century of Irish homosexuality.
Entitled The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, through dialogue and fascinating use of archive footage, the programme documents 100 years of Irish gay life, using the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde and the 1993 decriminalisation of homosexuality as handy bookends of the past century.
Although it was Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, as Minister for Justice, who actually forced the 1993 bill through, it was undoubtedly thanks to the tireless work of Senator David Norris, that events ever reached that stage. Consequently, Norris is one of main contributors to the documentary.
Hughes describes the contribution of David Norris as extraordinary .
He s had people working with him, he explains, but he s always been prepared to put his own name forward to stake his name, his reputation, his career, all in the cause of sexual liberation.
In particular, he refers to the 1988 ruling in the European Court of Human Rights which finally decided in Norris favour against Ireland s blanket ban on gay sex. It was a crucial benchmark in the cause of Irish gay liberation, and was the precursor to the 1993 bill.
But even after that, there was still a whole lot of work to be done. As former AIDS activist Ger Philpott put it so eloquently in his book Deep End, Homosexuality is still anathema to most people in this country even to many gay people themselves. How do you get people to accept the idea of men having sex with men, women having sex with women . . . when Irish society doesn t accept that people have sex with each other? n