Ken Curtin: Marriage Referendum, Political Activism, Marriage Equality,

Ken Curtin: Marriage Referendum, Political Activism, Marriage Equality,

Stories and memories of LGBT life in Cork City and County

Ken was the campaign director for the Yes Equality! which campaigned for a yes vote in the marriage equality referendum in 2015. Ken, a heterosexual man, outlines his relationship to the gay community. en then explains his background in politics and other campaigns that he has been involved with. Ken then goes on to explain the nuances of the debate around marriage equality referendum.

31 March 2015

CFP_SR00547_curtin_2015

Cork, Ireland, 2010s,

CFP_SR00502_kay_2014;
CFP_SR00516_browne_2014;
CFP_SR00518_dee_2014;
CFP_SR00519_casey_2014;
CFP_SR00521_mccarthy_2014;
CFP_SR00532_davis_2014;
CFP_SR00534_kiely_2014;
CFP_SR00547_curtin_2015;
CFP_SR00548_mcallister_2015;
CFP_SR00549_neville_2015;
CFP_SR00555_whelan_2015;
CFP_SR00556_lynch_2015;
CFP_SR00558_doherty_2015;
CFP_SR00561_kerrigan_2015;
CFP_SR00576_odonnabhain_2016;

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

English

Sound

1 .wav File

35min 31sec

North mall, Cork City

.wav

24bit / 48kHz

SD Em, was there a specific event that happened that made you get into equality in general in your fight for it?

KC Em, I suppose do you know what, I actually think probably becoming a student union officer in the late 90s, or mid to late 90s would have been really where my view changed, because I grew up in a part of rural   very, em, [pause] let’s just say we weren’t very forward-looking in our  thought perspective, like I give the example of-- there was a gran-aunt of mine, now deceased, a lovely lady, but she got a -- she got a blood transfusion in hospital and her two-- her biggest concern when she got the blood transfusion because she had black and blue bruising around it was that she was after getting a black-man’s blood and I explained to that wasn’t how it worked, ‘twas just bruising and I also had to explain to her, look the blood could come from anywhere and of course this sent her into free-fall, because as bad as it was the idea that it was a black man’s blood, she then realised that she could’ve got protestant blood and that would’ve been the ultimate no-no, that there was protestant blood gone into her system so I had to get a priest to come along and literally give her a blessing and things to make sure that this protestant blood was dealt with, em, and that wasn’t a hundred years ago, that was literally a little over-- that was within the last twenty years that happened, and I know to this day I’m still interacting with people in different walks of life who haven’t embraced or haven’t opened their eyes to the wider community particularly, so, I suppose, I’ve always been very strong on feminist issues, I’ve been strong on, I suppose, on this particular issue, but like, and I remember when the-- I remember having to explain to people years ago when I took part in a protest about em-- which one that I still to this day can’t get my head around is the blood transfusion, that men-- that gay men can’t give blood, em, and I-- I got-- I was on the television at the time talking about it and I had umpteen people onto me afterwards “Jesus Ken, what were doing, supporting the gays, what’s that all about like?” Whereas to me it just seemed insane, I’m a blood donor as well, there’s a huge shortage of blood donations all the time. These were people for every solid medical reason they could give blood, for, they were willing to give blood when an awful lot of people weren’t and we were turning them down, and unfortunately to this day it still hasn’t been resolved. So em, there’s been-- there was no one issue but a kind of a combination of all that like, I was always going to be supportive when something like this came along then.