Cathal Kerrigan: Activism, Gay Scene, Quay Co-op,
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Cruising loos and public toilets. Gay hangouts in 1970’s Cork. The Green Room on the corner of Paul St. The Château Bar on Patrick St. The Metropole Hotel Bar. It’s Persian inspired interior. Gay scandal at the Metropole bar. Moores Hotel Bar on Morrison’s Island. Imperial Hotel Bar. Where theatre crowd from Everyman Palace and Opera House hung out.
The book Homosexual: Oppression And Liberation by Dennis Altman. The liberal Cork bookshop APCK (the Association for Promoting Christian Knowledge). How it offered advice to young gay people. ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association). Kid Jenson on Radio Luxemburg.
Reading about picket of the Department Of Justice Union for Sexual Freedoms in Ireland. The gay rights movement in Ireland 1970s. David Norris. Cathal going to see a psychiatrist about his homosexuality. Sarsfield Court. Doing the Leaving Cert. His father getting him a job with the Southern Health Board. His father Road Bowling and going after to the Fox And Hounds pub in Ballyvolane.
IDRM (Irish Disability Rights Movement). Getting involved with the Irish branch of The Anti-Psychiatry Movement. R.D. Laing. The Sunday World doing an article on the gay movement in Dublin. The formation of the Irish branch of Irish branch Campaign For Homosexual Equality. Cathal writing off to the group. Sean Connolly and Eddie Dennehy of the 1970s Cork gay scene. Going to the Chateau bar for the first time. Cathal making contact with the Cork gay scene.
The character of Mr Humphries in sitcom Are You Being Served and how this was the only representation of a gay person seen on TV. How gay men in Cork would meet for sexual encounters by cruising public toilets or “cruising the loos”. Public toilet at the corner of Grand Parade and South Mall. Public toilet at bottom of Shandon St.
Moving out of home in 1975 into a bedsit on Sundays Well. How people at this time generally only moved out if they got married. Going to Dublin in 1975 to meet up with CFHE in Parnell Square in Dublin and meeting activists such as Edmund Lynch and Sean Connolly, David Norris, Bernard Keogh and Clem Clancy. Coming out as gay to his family the same year. His family’s reaction. Subscribing to the British paper Gay News. How it would arrive in a plain brown envelope. How in later years Cathals bedsit in Sundays Well was home to Mark Papazian who went on to commit a notorious murder in London. Cathals relationship with a man called Dennis Hyland, losing his virginity to him. Reading the intellectual C.P. Snow. How the Cork branch of Gay Liberation came to be set up in the mid-’70s. Holding cheese and wine receptions for the group in his Sundays Well bedsit. Meetings in Dan Lowry’s pub on McCurtain St. How at first they had meetings in St Francis Hall, how they had to move from there. The group set up a gay disco on McCurtain St. How Sean Connolly and Clem Clancy had already set up a gay disco in Dublin. David Norris first gay person to speak in an interview on Irish television on Last House with Áine O’Connor in 1975. Edmund Lynches documentary Did Anyone Notice Us? More on the gay disco on McCurtain St. How it was set up in a run-down building. Consulting with the Gardai in McCurtain St station before opening it. How some gay people were opposed to bringing the gay scene into the open as they preferred it hidden. Gay bashing. The 1982 Fairview Park murder of Declan Flynn and subsequent protests. The 1982 murder of RTE employee Charles Self. The homophobic murder in Cork of John Roche. How the gay scene in the ’70s was very middle class. How the disco ion McCurtain St brought more class diversity and working-class gay people.
How the George gay bar in Dublin attracted negative attention following the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland 1993. Patrons being attacked and robbed as they left.
A small gay scene that revolved around two men who had an n apartment in Empress Villas, on Summerhill North. Parties had at this premises.
The West Cork hippy scene that developed in the 1970s. People who came from England, Germany and elsewhere and bought land. How some of them would grow marijuana.
David Gordon who was known on the gay scene as Mother Gordon. His flat on Summerhill North a centre for parties on the scene. His fame as a ballet choreographer. His work with Joan Denise Moriarty in the Cork City Ballet. Working as a dancer and choreographer in Paris and London. How he would initiate gay young men into the scene. Cathal having a relationship with him. How he would hold court in the Chateau Bar and would not hide the fact that he was gay. How David Gordon had a tab with a taxi company. Good Time Charlie’s nightclub on Oliver Plunket Street, now the Oliver Plunket Bar. The Other Place gay club. The novel Mind That Tis Me Brother by Gaye Shortland.
Loafers bar on Douglas St, Corks first gay bar. Loafers founder Derek Gerrity and how he was an engineer in the Merchant Navy. Dancer Brendan Roddy. Cathal attending the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) conference in Sheffield in 1975. The split in the Irish branch of the CFHE. Split between the political side of the gay movement and those who wanted to profit commercially from the gay bars and discos. David Norris forming the NGF (National Gay Federation) and before that forming a political group The Campaign For Sexual Law Reform in 1978. Quay Co-Op on Sullivan’s Quay opening in 1982. How it hosted a gay disco in the mid-80s. Quay Co-Op founder Arthur Leahy. Cork gay activist Kieran Rose. Fr Joseph O Leary and his activism in the gay scene. Laurie Steele. Founding of the Cork Gay Collective.
Cathal studying in UCC. Successfully running for President of the Students Union. Himself and a colleague including a piece on gay advice on the student’s welfare booklet. How the Dean of student affairs Sean Teegan told them they could not sell it and how they got around this by giving it away. The coming of Aids a few short years after this.
November of 1981 the Philosoph debate in UCC. Donal Godfrey giving a speech. Cathal giving a speech on gay rights. Getting David Norris to speak.
The Gay Collective. How they were regarded as Looney lefties by the IGRM and the NGF. How in the Spring of 1980 they decided they would solve the problem of the split in the Irish gay rights movement. Meeting in the Reconciliation Centre in Glencreagh in Co Wicklow. Inviting IGRM and NGF. How they had no reconciliation. He then says he thinks it was actually held in 1980. First national gay conference held in Cork.
Arthur Leahy's archive. Kieran Rose work with the Labour Party. Gay Collective first action when they handed out leaflets at the ITCU annual conference in City Hall stating that gay rights were workers issues. British group Gay Left. Kieran Rose’s book Diverse Communities produced by Cork University Press. Irish Queer Archive.
Cathal entering into a relationship with Mairtín Mac an Ghoill a Trotskyite from Dublin who had lived in North and set up what would become the anti H-Block group The Relatives Action Committee with Bernadette McAlliskey. Getting involved with radical Republican politics. The H-Block Hunger Strikes. Mairtín Mac an Ghoill and Cathal marching at Cork Hunger Strikes protest under gay banner. Skiddy Court. Arthur Leahy and Co-Op.
Dublin Lesbian and Gay Collective. Gay Health Action came out of a suggestion from Arthur Leahy and Pat McCarthy. Aids and the death of Rock Hudson. Moving to Dublin. Trotskyites and socialists. Liberty Hall in Dublin. Trying to found a group called Gays Against Imperialism. Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (Glen). Glen split into two groups, the Dublin Gay Men’s and the Dublin Gay Collective. Lesbians complaining about sexism from gay men. Aids Help Alliance.
Cathal moving to the Netherlands. 1993 Fianna Fail and Labour passing the law decriminalising homosexuality. Coming back to Ireland. Moving to Galway. A gay character in the TG4 soap opera Ros Na Run. Getting involved with the Irish language. Moving back to Cork and getting a job as a librarian in UCC. Cork hurler Donal Og Cusack coming out as gay. Cathal’s views on coming out. How bi- sexual are viewed with suspicion by gay men. BBC programme Life In Squares about the Bloomsbury Group and their Bi-sexual lifestyle. UCC LGBT society.
The time in the 1970s when Cathal was threatened and robbed by a man he picked up while cruising for sex. The dangers of cruising. Grindr and online dating apps. Trying to have relationships as you get older. Changes in the gay socialising scene. The decline in gay bars. Chambers bar in Cork. Famous cruising gay bar in San Francisco called the Stud. Berlin after the wall came down. People taking Ecstasy tablets. Dutch Department Of Health providing Ecstasy tablet purity testing in nightclubs.
The death of his father from Cancer in 1979. How soon after Labour approached him to run for the Dail. The issues that would have arisen as a gay politician at the time. Turning it down. Tim Daly of Labour.
Gay activism and fundraising. The 2015 Marriage Equability referendum.
Date
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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;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enopWLdeOAw&t=2s
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SD Can I ask you, you mentioned earlier on, a man who was beaten to death was it John Roche?
CK John Roche, now I am not sure, how you know the usual thing but he is dead, I am not sure about his family they, the problem when people die, like the same with Flynn, Foley, Flynn and can’t remember his first name, Flynn in Fairview Park, when he was beaten to death his family objected to us, saying that he was cruising that he was gay, in fact, what we did is said, well look even if he is not gay, that is exactly the point, that in fact even straight people are risked by homophobia and battering.
SD Yeah.
CK But John Roche was a, you, you know he was a lovely guy he lived in Cork --
SD I was just going to ask did his death help influence you in marching when the Fairview murder.
CK Oh absolutely you know because I mean, the other one, is that before the Fairview murder as well there was the Charles Self. And the Charles Self was a designer at RTE, this was in 1981, he was murdered. 1982 was the protest around it, and he was bludgeoned to death, I didn’t see photographs or anything but the description, he was bludgeoned to death in his apartment, he was a well to do designer in RTE, what is presumed is that he brought somebody back and this person went psycho and bludgeoned him to death. Now I suppose I should say that to me this is something I haven’t really talked about before I have, talked to a couple of people personally about it is, in many cases I say to people I have been very lucky, like for instance Lawrence Davis, I hope he doesn’t mind, I am sure he won’t mind me mention it, he is kind of the chair of the LGBT staff network here in UCC, he is from America, but he is living in Dublin and he is commuting up and down but Lawrence and I were talking about violence against gays, because I was saying, we were somewhere yes, we were walking through, and the day of the referendum count, Lawrence was in Cork and we were walking from the count centre to get something to eat, about four or clock in the afternoon, you know the count was coming in, the count centre people were sitting in and cheering, I said to Lawrence this is going on much longer but I am going to need some food, I am going to go out and get some, and he said well I will go with you because we will come back you know, we came back for six o clock news but on the way to get food, we passed by the Gate cinema, and as we were crossing the road, Lawrence said lets go across the road here, and I said why? There were a bunch of young fellas, young teenagers just horsing around, but he felt kind of nervous, I said look, trust me I am from Cork, I know how to handle these guys at this thing but talking about it afterwards I said but I have been lucky really I had never had any violence, I think he said, I have been beaten up twice and it really makes you aware you know, how vulnerable. And I’d had a friend in Dublin and the scene in Dublin and he was a lovely guy, he was a teacher, well he is a teacher, but a lovely guy and he was great outgoing and great fun and, and then I heard he had been beaten up, he had been out cruising in Powerstown [phonetic spelling] Park and he had beaten up and I didn’t see him for about six or nine months and then I met him about yeah twelve months later, and I was talking to him over drink. And he said Cathal my whole life has changed, he said now, said before this happened, I walked around and I didn’t even think about safety, I just assumed I was safe everywhere I went, I didn’t even look around me, I just, now he said, I am terrified of even going to a gay bar without looking around, are there, are there bashers, you know looking for clients there, looking for potential targets, you know because they will follow you out of the bar and then beat you up, he said look I am terrified, my sense of safety, I can’t relax at all, they have destroyed my very living day to day every minute, now Lawrence wasn’t as bad obviously but it was again, if you were beaten up, I said, I was saying to him I haven’t had that experience but then, of course, I ended up saying to him, telling him I think about an experience I did have which was in Cork. I mentioned that Tadgh and Dominic had showed me how to cruise and I said how horrified I was about all this, but I was having difficulty, finding people to have sex with, I have never been, I have always had difficulty with sex in that sense since I was you know. It is, in some people are great they can go into, I have never gone into a sauna, believe it or not, I have gone into a sauna to get money for the Fairview march from people in Dublin but I got it at the counter. I never went, I have never gone into and I lived in Amsterdam and I was just five hundred metres up the way from the night sauna and about seven hundred and fifty metres away from the, the day sauna. People used to say, but why haven’t you? I said, friends of mine used to go, go in but I never, I just somehow it is not my kind, I need to see people, I need to be able to relate to them. I, I need, I am probably still Catholic enough for me to believe, even though I have one night stands, I always said I never have one night stands, I always had a potential relationship until the following morning, they said goodbye, or I said goodbye. So that is the kind of mentality, but there I was in Cork, I was not settled into Cork, I was nineteen, I was living in Sundays Well with my own apartment. So I had my own place, so now I should have been just having sex every night, I should have had a live-in lover, but I certainly should have, I had my own space it was not a problem by not having a bed to go to, not having privacy but I still wasn’t getting the sex. People seem to be shying away from me or I was alienating people, blah blah, I hadn’t met, it was about the time I met David maybe, but the thing is that, I was, and used, I used to get, in those days you got paid in cash, and you got paid a week, once a, on a Friday, and you got, and your money was put in a little brown envelope and they gave it to you, you went down collected it so a Friday afternoon I collected my money, and I was just feeling, I went in, I, I decided to go straight into town. I had lunch at work, because that was kind of thing, I went straight into town went into the bar or whatever, I went into a bar had a few drinks, had a few more drinks, went to, it was probably Le Chateaux I think at the time, or possibly the Imperial or maybe both because there was a kind of, kind of a trail that you could do as well, you know the way gay people, you want to, one bar would be just so boring, it would be much more fun, particularly for the kind of cruisiness. You would move to, and the pub closed, and I was very drunk and I had my brown envelope in my pocket and I walked up, I remember, it must have been the imperial, I walked up North Main street, and there is, when you cross the North Gate Bridge, just at the end of Shandon street, there was a little, tiny little loo, there, which was open air, and was just like literally, two, if you can imagine two concrete walls and there was a kind of entrance way on one side and then there was a piss, wall, and basically just you could just piss there, and the water, and it is just flowed directly into the river, because it was just on the side of the river, so it is like if you know where the taxi company has a little hut there at the end of Shandon street on the quay just directly across from that, so I went and I decided and that was a cruising area a big cruising area as well believe it or not even though it could only fit like two or three people but there, what you need, the way it works. So I went in there [pause] and I came out and there was nobody in there and I so I pissed and I came out and thought right that is the end of it now I said, I am going to walk up home to Sunday’s Well up along the Quay, and as I was walking up along the Quay, I realised I thought there was somebody following me and looked around and there was gorgeous guy, tight clothes, looking like he could be a sailor or something, I thought, and he over took me as I was climbing the hill of Sundays Well and we got talking and he was on for sex, so we went back into my bedsit, and the next thing I remember, I was very drunk so the next thing I remember is that my coat, my coat was on the hook of the back of the door, I was naked, lying naked on the bed and it was just a single bed, and he was half clothed his top was off but not his trousers and he was sitting on me, and I remember him just sort of [pause] pinning my arms down, and saying so you like it rough, and I was saying maybe yeah please. And then he was slapping my face and he was suddenly, suddenly all I remembered is him saying, something about money and of course, I was such a person, I got so insulted with the idea, that there was going to be money involved with this, and then I got frightened. So I was robbed, and I just, so then I got scared, and I remember just saying just take the money, it is in the inside pocket of the jacket or whatever so he took my money and disappeared with all my money for that week, and of course in those days, I lived on a week to week to basis, a bit like Eastenders, you know you only have the money that you earn that week. And I think so, I had to go to Eddie, he was the only person I told about this. I couldn’t tell my parents they would have been horrified and Eddie lent me enough money to get through the week. And I never really told many people but deep down it obviously, when I say I have never been beaten up since. One of the things and that is why I was saying about the back of the bus and being visible, is that [pause] you can have a self-selected, you know, kind of, you control your space, so you never go to spaces where you are likely to be in danger, and so I yes, I would feel that maybe that even though I have covered it up, now that I am looking back, I would say what I learned from that thing, was that I was never going to put myself in that position as possible. And that when I have gone into positions, like when living in Amsterdam, I had an American friend visiting as well from New York but he was a good friend, but he we were walking along the quays one night coming from a bar, a beautiful night, and suddenly he got very edgy, there were two black guys coming for us, and I spoke fluent Dutch at this stage, and there was no thing, of racial, you didn’t have racism in Amsterdam you know it was quiet but he got, very and he had been beaten up in New York and it was, he had that New York kind of distrust of people who were black, in America, kind of deep down, and he is you know, unaware of, he went I said look trust me this is my space, I know it just, but he didn’t we were walking past, and one of the guys could see something going you know could feel it. And just he started shouting what is going on over there, ye don’t like this or something or what and my friend ran, and then I was left there, they came over to me, and so I was talking Dutch to them and persuading them and trying got out of it by talking so I think yeah I mean I feel very strongly that if you know, if you talk about that is why when you look at the Fairview march as I said, this guy has just done his thesis on, on gays against imperialism and that all whole gay collective thing. And he makes a comment and I have just read it, and he makes a comment in it that you know, that we the documentation, and the Archive shows because I would have forgotten some of it so, we deliberately we made a very specific thing, that we were not conservatives saying hang them high, give them harder sentences lock them away for life. We turned the Fairview march in on, and the front banner said stop violence against gay’s and women, and we need to. Nobody should ever feel threatened whether they are because of race of because of the way they look because of who they love or because of their gender