Edmund Lynch: Irish Gay Rights Movement, Marriage Referendum, Activism,

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Title

Edmund Lynch: Irish Gay Rights Movement, Marriage Referendum, Activism,

Subject

Stories and memories of LGBT life in Cork City and County.

Description

Edmund Lynch is a gay activist from Dublin. He came out to his family in 1974/5. He discusses the Irish gay rights movement from the 1970s through decriminalisation and the Marriage Referendum in 2015.

Date

14 July 2015

Identifier

CFP_SR00556_lynch_2015

Coverage

Cork, Dublin, Ireland, 1960s-2010s

Source

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Language

English

Type

Sound

Format

1 .wav File

Interviewee

Duration

37min 09sec

Location

Cork Folklore Project, Farranferris, Cork

Original Format

. wav

Bit Rate/Frequency

24bit / 48kHz

Transcription

EL   Since the foundation of the gay movement way back in ’71 was it? Yeah, 71’ or ‘73 I forget what year. I have always been interested that we should always keep cutting out everything. I mean I worked in RTE and I was in the film Department and when we would be going out on the road I was well known going into the van with the Irish Times, the Irish Press, the Irish Independent as I went through all the papers, cutting everything out, cutting them perfect, putting the date on, and it went into the Archive of the Irish Gay Rights movement at that time, and I kept an interest in Archives and I mean I did a film about the Irish gay people because I felt it was very important, it shouldn’t be lost and about two and a half three years ago I thought, would you get and interview people about there story what it was like, growing up as being gay and lesbian, I mean at the time, we found that the gay movement, we were all known as homosexual people. There was no, there might have been lesbians we didn’t know about transgender and we didn’t know what the word gay was except having a great time on Gay Byrne, people like that, and it just, it is the sort of thing, I have always been interested, that we should always have information and it is the same way even today, when I have my coffee and everything else in the Irish Film Centre, I always sit at table thirteen, and people say why table thirteen? I say it is the best seat to see everyone that comes in for coffee, so you don’t miss anyone that you may have known or didn’t know. So I have been always interested in gathering up information because I think the more information we have, the easier it is to tell a story.

DC And throughout your years in RTE, did you always, did you feel like you were going to do something like this later.

EL Yeah, I mean RTE wasn’t a gay area as it may be now, a lot of gay people, the only time it was gay it was at Christmas, when the lights were turned on, in the whole complex, you know, outside and everything else. I, I came out as being gay in RTE I didn’t care, and I always learned that word, F off which was really good, you could say it nicely and you could say it hard, but I didn’t put up with people who were anti-gay, a lot of people might have been anti because they didn’t know what gay was. And I was a, when RTE did programmes about like Cathal O’Shannon and things like that, I knew about it, they would ask me about certain things. Because people made them, oh this is a new story lets get out and be the first ones with it, but RTE wasn’t a pro-gay, but it wasn’t anti.

SD Right. Can you tell us about your vision for your project, what is your end result?

EL My end result of this project is, that our history isn’t forgotten, that it has been available to everyone, especially for the thousands of young, gay and lesbian and transgender people coming on, that they will know something of their history their story, because their story has been told by people, it has not being told by me, I am just acting as the, I won’t say a judicator because I am not going to be judicate, I’m a facilitator I think would be a better word of getting people telling the story I may, bring them in a certain direction, to make sure that they haven’t forgotten something, you know, which is important like. I interviewed someone recently and I was out, at the GALA Awards did someone mention did so and so mention about, when I person died from an AIDS-related disease, the undertakers wouldn’t take the body, they had to prepare it, so there was a group of people in Dublin who were preparing peoples bodies for, for burial, I didn’t know about my in Dublin, I was in the middle of a lot of things, but I didn’t know about that, but that sort of story, and I also talking to people, who talk about their children that they have adopted and so forth, and I, you know I have learnt a lot of thing. A lot of single older gay men, may not have known that they were gay, but they were the one people that were left at home to mind there mothers to look after them in old age, and people tend to forget that, and they also tend to forget the amount of good work, be the people that have been priests, pastors, have have, done. But there are stories that I am getting out of people but it is in their words and of course before I interview anybody, they have to sign a release form, and maybe doing everything on television but that is so I can get the transcript, the transcriptions done but it also means that it can be made into programmes but only with their permission but if they decide, they do not want it to be transmitted and that, that doesn’t, it doesn’t get done. And it is going to a University, University of Galway and it will be available to everyone, it is not going into the National Archives because I regard it as a black hole of Calcutta.

SD  Okay

DC Okay.

SD And can you tell us so a little bit about the book that you plan from your Irish LGBT History Project?

EL I have been in touch with the History book of Ireland and they are willing to publish it. They have been talking about cutting it back and I have, and still say no. I am a person that, I think it needs to be bigger. I think I showed you the size, I think the book can be done so I can everything in, but every person I have interviewed, I have all passed it over too, a friend of mine who is a barrister and every interview has been checked, for example, anyone a promise have been named, their name has been changed, unless you give permission for the name to be left in it or they have died because I can’t be sued if they die.

SD Right, and the format that the book will take, is it going to contain direct transcripts or are you going to break everything down into themes or?

EL It maybe still open, it may be down to themes and then again it may not. I am one of these people, an ex-television person, you don’t make up your mind till nearer the time, and I think there would be a mixture of both.

SD Okay, can you talk to us a little bit about the documentary that you directed, did anyone notice us?

EL Well I am happy to say, it was shown down here at the Cork Film Festival and it was a surprise to me that I won, I didn’t realise that, I came up with the idea, in RTE, went to Cathal Cohen who was, he wasn’t director general then, no he was head of programmes and I said Cathal, I would like to do it, you know and I said not for the organisation, can I have the use of all, all the footage, and it was forty thousand pounds worth of stuff, he said, go on, it wasn’t costing them money and so I got it all. And I knew what was in the library, that was a good thing about it and then I sat down to write a story and decided what was the best way to do it, and I thought that some classic stuff and I thought that Gay Byrne was so good, when the woman who was talking to, when she was talking about the inserter and the insertee, you know, and it’s a film that is available to everyone but someone without my permission put it on Youtube and I haven’t had, I didn’t bother take it down. I didn’t mind but I think it is important for people to have it.

SD Right and the dates of that documentary go from 1973 to 1993?

EL That’s when the law, we were all marching up after the law was changed.

SD Why 1973, is that our earliest RTE records of that.

EL It was the earliest that RTE would have, I think it was the first one they did, was The Late Late Show, with Rose Robertson, which unfortunately was wiped, and you know that was the time they were doing it, you know that was the time they were doing it that, I think the only thing was, was a piece on the radio, done by Líam Nolan talking to two gay people at the start of the first gay conference.

DC And that was in 73?

EL Yeah, which I was one of the people organising it. But I mean the Late Late Show, I asked Gay Byrne would he agree to have Rose Robertson on and talk about the, yeah, I said would you pay here fare over you know and the hotel, as you would with your guests, yes I would do all that.

Collection

Citation

Cork Folklore Project, “Edmund Lynch: Irish Gay Rights Movement, Marriage Referendum, Activism,,” accessed March 28, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/97.