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Conleth’s Story: Proud

For Pride month, we asked our members if they would like to share their stories about their lives and what Pride means to them. The response has been amazing and we may continue these after Pride month has ended. If you would like to contribute your story, please send your story to londonirishlgbtnetwork@gmail.com

Thanks to Conleth’s for sharing his story.

Proud

By Conleth Kane

I will never forget my first non-uniform day at my secondary school – St Paul’s Junior High School in Lurgan back in 1997. It was an all-boys Catholic School in a working-class town in Lurgan in N. Ireland. I emerged from my bedroom wearing a Spice Girls T Shirt and my parents looked at me with fear all over their faces. They were always terrified on my behalf but I honestly didn’t give a s**t. I adored the Spice Girls. The band was the only display of diversity I had seen and they made it very clear that it was perfectly acceptable to be in a group scenario but be individual. I suppose that’s why I saw 60,000 other gay people at their 2019 reunion shows at Wembley Stadium. I guess they also identified with the very loud and clear message the girls generated.

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Events

Virtual Event: Tonie Walsh in Conversation

London Irish LGBT Network are proud to invite you to this FREE event. What a perfect way to finish Pride month. We’re delighted to announce that we will be joined at our virtual meet up on June 28th at 8pm by Tonie Walsh, Archivist, journalist and activist.

Tonie Walsh, has been at the forefront of LGBT civil rights on the island of Ireland since 1979.

He cut his teeth as a journalist at Out magazine, Ireland’s first commercial gay periodical, and in 1988 he co-founded GCN magazine.

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News

Out in The World: Exhibition Launch

Join us and other member of the Irish LGBTQ diaspora for ‘Out in The World‘, a new exhibition, which will be hosted in Dublin by the EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in partnership with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

The exhibition has been curated by Dr Maurice J. Casey who has been a champion of the LGBTQ community and a friend of the London Irish LGBT Network for a number of years. Maurice gave a talk for us on his paper ‘Radical Politics, The 8th and LGBT Activism in the Republic of Ireland 1973-1990.

The online launch takes place on June 8th at 6.30pm and will feature our Chair, Vanessa Monaghan, speaking as a voice of the Irish LGBTQ diaspora. You need to register for your free ticket on Eventbrite.

You can visit the exhibition EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin from June 8th to December 1st 2021. Here’s the fun part: ‘Out in The World’ will also tour to select locations across the world in 2022. Hopefully London will be one of those stops!

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