Tag: Irish in London

For Pride month, we asked some of our members if they would like to tell their story and why they are proud. If you would like to contribute, please email londonirishlgbtnetwork@gmail.com Here’s the first of these stories but first, grab yourself a cuppa.

Mo scéal (agus bréaga eile)

le Aindrias MacT

Creepy Christian Brothers feature, of course, when I consider my childhood, along with the motley parade of pervy priests and nuns inevitably involved with my education.  A very near miss with rape by a local hard-man when I was about 9 and the usual clutch of cliches of repressed Irish small town life apply also.  Yet none of these factors figured much into my formative sexual identity, at least as far as I can tell.

I suppose I was always a bit different.  Some of that was from the classic combination of being obnoxiously good in class and bad at sports (though I compensated to some degree through sheer bulk).  And some from the fact that my mother was English, which had real resonance in early ‘70s Ireland: I do remember being asked as a 7 year old – by an adult – which side would I take in a civil war.  My father died when I was young so my mother was working long hours and both my brothers were much older (not very subtle code for my being a menopausal accident) so I was a bit of a loner, by force of circumstance mostly, rather than choice.

Continue reading “Aindrias’ Story: Mo scéal (agus bréaga eile)” →