Tony Doherty: Rainbow Ramblers, Cork Gay Mens’ Cooperative, Cruising.

Tony Doherty: Rainbow Ramblers, Cork Gay Mens’ Cooperative, Cruising.

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

Tony Doherty was interviewed as part of the LGBT project. He describes his younger days in Cork in the 1950s and 1960s. He went to England in 1968, five years after decriminalisation in the UK. His father was a Special Branch Garda who believed in the death penalty for homosexuality. He describes being gay in a Catholic school, the social scene, theatre productions and notable people. He recalls decriminalisation in 1993.

15 July 2015

CFP_SR00558_doherty_2015

Cork, Ireland, England, 1950s-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

95min 22sec

The South Terrace, Cork City.

.wav

24bit / 48kHz

SD When did you first hear the term coined, you know homosexual gay?

TD Ah sure we heard it all the time my father like was in the special branch, and they were constantly in those days the guards like kind of following going down any cruising areas, or I remember once talking about some Judge that used to come to Cork like and they would follow him around because he picking up young fellas, there was a kind of balance as far I could see in those days, that, like there was no one obviously anyone open, they were about two openly gay men Martin Bennett in the, what was it called, he had a shop, the bargain stores in the North Main street, he was famous, everyone knew he was gay like, he would be getting off with Echo Boys and things and there was a guy, over in Boreenmanna, who was known as Father Tom I think, even though he wasn’t a priest who was into young fellas as well and there was a fella two doors up and so like it accepted that, our headmaster up in Chriost Rí used bring the good looking guys and he would sit them on his lap, like cute little first and second years and things like that, and we were aware of that, we accepted it, there was another brother who used to do it as well, and that was the norm. I remember now this, there was a brother there who used always fall in love with the young fella who would be playing the boy soprano in the opera, the annual opera, that Gilbert and Sullivan done every year like and he would be trying to kiss him backstage and we would grab, we would be working backstage as well, we would grab the young fella and we would be waiting to land, for Brother Amsel[phonetic??] would to appear, and we would shove him out in front of him. Because we just thought that this is the norm you know, but if you didn’t associate yourself with that, you would be kind of tempted alright to go looking for Uncle Tom, or Father Tom, whatever you called him, but then I kind have started an affair, or a fling with a friend of mine so that solved that problem.