A sunny Friday evening in Dublin and the George, perhaps Ireland’s most famous LGBTQ+ bar, is buzzing.
The colourful venue on South Great George’s Street – painted purple outside and bedecked with rainbow regalia within – opened in 1985, providing a rare “safe space” for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
As the 10th anniversary of marriage equality approaches, the George and venues like it remain important meeting points, and even places of sanctuary.
Though customers are happy to share memories of the overwhelming joy and relief they felt that Saturday, May 23rd, 2015, as resounding Yes results came in from across the State, they also note a deterioration in the environment for their community.
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Lee Graham (32) from Drimnagh is at the bar, scrolling on his phone. Asked about marriage equality, he says he was “still almost a child” when the referendum was held.
“But it was so important to me, of course. We are real people. We’re not just a gimmick. Love is love and if you want to marry someone it should be rightfully so. Why shouldn’t we be able to be married?”
But, he continues: “Things have gone backwards. It’s back to being shamed because of who you are. So yes, places like the George are very important, very.
“There is one straight bar that I’d feel comfortable [in] and that’s because everybody knows me and I am safe there. But I would never go into somewhere that I don’t know because the minute they hear your lingo or how you sound feminine they’re like, ‘Oh, who is this now?’”
For lesbian and gay people things are generally pretty good, but the people who used to give us grief have focused their energies unfortunately towards our trans siblings. I know a lot of trans people who are really quite terrified by what’s going on
— Adrian Hempel
He links increased homophobia to increases in other “hates” including racism and misogyny. “Oh my God, the misogyny. It’s all, ‘I am alpha-male ... I earn this much.’”
John Hawkins (53) from Dublin remembers Dublin Castle’s courtyard playing host to a huge celebration where thousands gathered carrying rainbow flags. “It was very moving, very profound,” he says.
There was also a sadness for him. “I realised during the campaign [for a Yes vote] that because for all my life society and law had deemed someone like me could never get married, I never thought I could consider that ... That was profound for me to realise that from a very young age I had built up massive internal barriers to the possibility of what the magnitude of love could be in my life.
“I had to acknowledge that, listen to it and talk to that place in myself that had walls up against love ... It was like internalised homophobia. It was really, really deep,” he says.
Asked if this is a grief, he says: “It is a loss. But what I love now is when I see the younger, younger kids who are coming out to their families, and being met with openness, acceptance.
“They are not going to miss out having a crush, or recognising who they fancy, or the qualities in a human they might be attracted to. They are not going to have those barriers, or suppress that most beautiful part of themselves, which is to experience the greatest thing – love. That fills me with joy.”
Australian Adrian Hempel (49) was living in Australia but was watching closely as Ireland became the first country to choose to have same-sex marriage by popular vote as his boyfriend was Irish. “We got married here and the vote made that possible.”
[ Mary McAleese: Marriage equality did not end rampant homophobiaOpens in new window ]
They campaigned in Australia’s 2017 referendum, which also passed. “It was actually quite traumatic to have everyone in our community given licence to debate our humanity and our human rights. It was a very difficult period to live though but you have to be happy with the final result.”
Asked how things are 10 years on for his community, he says: “For lesbian and gay people things are generally pretty good, but the people who used to give us grief have focused their energies unfortunately towards our trans siblings. I know a lot of trans people who are really quite terrified by what’s going on.”
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After a largely positive campaign the Yes vote prevailed by 62 to 38 per cent on a large 60.5 per cent turnout, with strong Yes votes across Dublin of more than 70 per cent. Just one constituency, Roscommon-South Leitrim, rejected same-sex marriage, by 51.4 per cent.
The then minister for health, Leo Varadkar, who had come out as gay during the referendum campaign, said the overwhelming Yes vote marked Ireland as a “beacon of light” for the rest of the world.
And around the world the result was greeted with joy. “Ireland did it! The 1st country to legalize marriage equality by popular vote, but they won’t be the last! What an incredible accomplishment,” said US lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres in a tweet.
“The weather really played ball,” recalls Rory O’Neill, artist and gay rights activist. “It felt to me like what I imagine it was like on VE Day – people spontaneously dancing on the streets.
“It actually turned out the referendum was about something more than marriage,” he continues. “It was about feeling a belonging. That was overwhelming – that this country that had once really tried very hard to disown me and people like me had turned around and decided to embrace me and my kind.”
While he had strongly suspected a majority would vote Yes, he hadn’t known it.
“And it turns out that knowing is really powerful. And I think you could see that reflected in the streets. You immediately began to see gay couples holding hands in a way you just had not. I think that was down to this knowing most people are on your side. There was something really freeing about that.”
Ethel Buckley, deputy general secretary of the Siptu trade union, which campaigned for a Yes vote, says: “It was Ireland shaking off that old, non-progressive self.” It was crucial, she says, in paving the way for the successful campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment three years later.
[ Gay couples feel ‘a little safer’ holding hands since referendumOpens in new window ]
Moninne Griffith, chief executive of the youth LGBTQ+ organisation Belong To, says in the days after the result large numbers of young people came to its drop-in service for the first time. “There was a sense of, ‘It’s safe to be out.’ They felt it was safe, and hugely affirmed.”
This affirmation felt solid for “about five years”, says Griffith. There were “many positive developments” including gender recognition legislation later in 2015, the first national strategy for LGBTQ+ young people and increased funding for LGBTQ+ initiatives.
Since 2015 there have been almost 6,000 same-sex weddings – 3,131 of men and 2,734 of women. The community felt increasingly safe and integrated. “And then Covid came. And the haters got their baptism in the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-government stuff.”
As well as targeting immigrants, Griffith says, “they drum up fear and worry about trans people – this tiny minority of people”.
Exacerbating this is increasing misogyny, she continues. “It’s very loud about trans people but if you scratch the surface there is a huge amount of homophobia. A lot of policing ‘manliness’. We are hearing a lot of people being called ‘faggots’ again.”
A Belong To and Trinity College Dublin study, published last year, reports an upsetting reality for LGBTQ young people (under 25) and trans people of all ages.
“Young LGBTQI+ people have reported increases in having feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide ideation, while trans people face increased stigma, isolation and discrimination in society, [more so] than other cohorts in the LGBTQI+ community,” it stated.
Lea Hennessy (18) lives in Wexford and is non-binary and transsexual. They describe “a lot of anxiety” among their peers. They remember hearing about marriage equality. “It sounds really cool.”
But for them now, just being themself is challenging. “I hear slurs all the time and have had a bad time in school with it. I know for my friends it’s similar. I know people who haven’t been able to come out and others who have experienced hate crimes,” they say.
Greater understanding of the reality of trans and non-binary people’s lives would make a huge difference, says Hennessy. This could start in school curricula. “It feels like we just get mentioned as a definition in SPHE class. The rest of the time we are pushed the straight, nuclear family all the time.
“There needs to be an understanding that we are part of the community and we need to find our spot ... but you almost feel you have to see yourself as different to society because of what everyone says about you. It’s hard.”
Sam Blanckensee, chair of Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and equality officer with Maynooth University, campaigned for a Yes vote in Wicklow.
They felt “just such a relief that it had gotten through” and believes “marriage equality is no longer a question within Ireland”.
I would have hoped by now we would see gender recognition for under-16s, for non-binary people. That was all promised. It’s not moving and there is a rise in transphobia
— Sam Blanckensee
However: “It is really challenging to see it go so far backwards so quickly,” particularly for the trans community. “It seems like we are the scapegoat for so many issues.
“We don’t feel that people are seeing the vulnerabilities the community has. Trans people are such a small part of society, at such a greater risk of violence and sexual violence but are so often portrayed as the perpetrators of that violence.”
Echoing them, O’Neill says he does not feel as safe in Dublin as he used to, particularly when occupying his drag-queen persona Panti Bliss. “Thirty years ago if I was running from the George and had to go to another club, I just ran out the to the street and ran over or flagged down a taxi, and didn’t really think about it. For a time after the referendum I was even more relaxed about it.
“Whereas now I am not. Ten years ago no one on the street would have called me a paedophile. And now, that will happen. The haters have been emboldened.”
Blanckensee says transgender abuse is not only online and on the streets. “It’s at policy level too.” Despite the enactment of gender recognition legislation, also in 2015, they say healthcare for trans people is “the worst in Europe”.
They reference a 2022 survey by Transgender Europe (TGEU), which is funded by the EU and campaigns for the “complete depathologisation of trans and gender-diverse identities”.
Blanckensee would “really love the LGB community to stand out with us because Ireland is a much harder place to be trans today than it was 10 years ago”.
“I would have hoped by now we would see gender recognition for under-16s, for non-binary people. That was all promised. It’s not moving and there is a rise in transphobia.”
The trade union movement has “always provided safe spaces” for the LGBTQ communities, says Buckley. In 1981, she recalls, the union hosted the first national gay conference in Cork. “This was 12 years before homosexuality was legalised,” she says.
However, she says: “We have rested on our laurels a bit since marriage equality. The other side seems as galvanised as we were back then ... Progressive movements need to coalesce around fighting the rise of the far right.”
She will find a welcome from LGBTQ+ groups. “We really need our allies, including in Government, to come back and hear what’s going on and stand with us again,” says Griffith. “Show up in your communities, go to your local Pride events. We need you more than ever, to call out misinformation, call out hate.”
Back at the George, Hawkins agrees “things have gone back” but he has faith in the resilience of a movement that “slogged” for decades to achieve the equality so joyously celebrated a decade ago.
“The pendulum always swings back and forward ... The movement will always stand hopeful and proud and brave, but definitely not complacent, right across the rainbow.”
