So as you know, our online AGM is on tomorrow, October 25th at 8pm. If you haven’t already, please do register for a FREE ticket. This is so we can ensure a safe space for all participants.
If you have anything you want to bring up, would like to add or have anything in particular you would like discussed please email: londonirishlgbtnetwork@gmail.com This is so we can add your topic to the ‘Any Other Business’ part of the evening.
Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts and there not being enough hours in the day, we’re going to have to postpone our chat with Conleth on Monday. We’re hoping to re-arrange the date as soon as possible. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Join London Irish LGBT Network for our monthly virtual meet-up on Monday July 26th at 8pm. This month we’re joined by Northern Irish singer-songwriter, Conleth Kane.
Conleth has just released his new single ‘Proud’, which has been remixed by remixers to the stars, 7th Heaven.
Described by OK Magazine! as ‘the breath of fresh air we all need right now’ and QX Magazine as “an infectiously energetic, refreshingly cheerful Singer/Songwriter”, Conleth Kane recorded his debut album ‘Proud – Live in London’ at a sold out show at The Crazy Coqs in London’s West End in Oct 2018 seeing him shoot to Number 2 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter Charts in Feb 2019.
Originally hailing from Northern Ireland, Kane trained at the prestigious Arts Educational Schools in London and went on to perform roles on screen as well as in Musicals in the West End and all over the UK/Ireland before becoming a Singer/Songwriter.
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 Lee for sharing his story.
Pride is Fucking Fun
by Lee Brophy
I’m very fortunate to have parents who accepted me for my queerness no questions asked. One caveat, I had to come out to my dad twice because the first time he thought gay and bi were the same thing (if he only knew!)
It took me until I was 19 to come out as bisexual due to chronic shyness. I had been bullied for being fat by so many people that it completely destroyed my self esteem and expression. It took years of sarcasm, reverse psychology, and a really big mirror for me to undo the self sabotage. Now I separate the feedback into ‘useful’ and ‘that’s funny, I wish I thought of that’.
I don’t begrudge anyone who was horrible to me growing up. I am who I am today because of everything that has happened to me.
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 another story for you but first, grab yourself a cuppa!
From Ennis to New York To London Pride 2021
By Bernárd Lynch
After over forty years of activism in the LGBTQI+ community I look back and see that as a gay man the trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters. He encounters because he must encounter the people who see his secrecy before anything else. They drag his secrets out of him with often dire consequences. The aim of the dreamer, after all, is to go on dreaming and not to be molested by the world. But the aims of life are antithetical to those of the dreamer, and the teeth of the world are sharp.
At school in Ennis C.B.S. the boy I was best pals with I fell in love with. He may have loved me as his pal, but I was in love with him. And although I didn’t know it at the time, I felt it with every bone in the soul of my body. This was the prevenient and perineal truth of my tortured adolescence.
London Irish LGBT Network 