The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
CLARE will hold its first ever Pride festival over the course of a weekend later this month.
It will kick off on Culture Night, Friday, September 23, with ‘‘Queering the Green’, a queer poetry book launch and reading at Mna ag Gaire (Ennis Women’s Shed) in Ennis.
The reading will feature three of Ireland’s leading queer poets, Liz Quirke, Simon Costello and Clare’s own Sarah Clancy.
The following day the show will go on with an LGBTQI+ youth event in Shannon including dance workshops and drag bingo.
This will be followed by the grand weekend finale – a no-holds-barred over 18s party featuring drag queen and kings and DJs at the Oakwood Hotel in Shannon.
As well as being a celebrated poet, Sarah is one of the organisers of Clare Pride, and speaking about it this week, she said, “We have a few events on, it’s small and contained, we’re not having a week long festival.
“We have three different events planned and there may be more to come, we’re working on one at the moment.”
Sarah is among the founders of the Quare Clare organisation, which she says was started to help deal with the lack of outlets for the community in Clare.
“That group was started by a few organisations in Clare, those were Clare Local Development Company, Clare PPN, Clare Women’s Network and some members of the Clare LGBTQ community.
“It’s not saying that Clare is LGBTQ friendly or not, but there was no social outlet or support outlet in Clare for LGBTQ people. We found in our community work, that asylum seekers, people from the Traveller community, didn’t know where they could meet other people or that there were other people like them in Clare.”
“We also had a feeling that there may be older, isolated people out around Clare, Ireland had changed since they were younger and they might enjoy the chance to have a social scene for their own identity.”
The pandemic meant that Quare Clare didn’t organise the range of events that it would have hoped for, but things are motoring now.
“Covid-19 interrupted our plans and so we had a kind of a shaky start, but I’d say we’ve had about 15 different events, meet-ups, trips, different things. We’ve had some with three people at them, some with 40 people at them. It has been very good fun, but it has been a little bit up and down.
“We planned our first Pride festival last year, we had a big event planned for the Doolin hotel and we had to cancel it at the last minute, because there was a huge surge in Covid cases. We were really disappointed, but we’re thrilled to be back doing it this year.”
Pride events don’t see the kind of opposition that would have been the case years ago, but Sarah insists that they are still required.
“It wouldn’t be controversial, but it’s still necessary. People can sometimes ask why do you need it, but I’d say that even since we’ve started we’ve had people at meetings who never came out to anyone ever, you know, older people living in Clare, and sometimes that’s been quite emotional. Sometimes it’s been people from backgrounds where it mightn’t be quite so tolerated.”
“The main reason to have the Pride festival is to say we’re here, we’re in your community, in your everyday life, but we’re also slightly different and that difference needs to be respected as well. But the main thing is that it’s going to be a fun weekend.”
Originally from Galway, she lives in North Clare and works for the Public Participation Network, while she is a member of the LGBTQ community herself.
After arriving in the Banner, she noticed that there was a certain lack of visibility here.
“Myself and my partner Anne live in Belharbour. While I’ve been involved in all sorts of organising around social justice issues and the marriage equality campaign, it hadn’t really occurred to me that coming to work in a largely rural county, that there wasn’t anything there.
“One story that really struck me was a woman who we know sought asylum in Ireland. She understood herself to be a lesbian but she had no idea whether or not this was a place that was tolerant, where she would be accepted.
“She came from a community where it was very much not accepted. She could see no clues anywhere in Clare as to whether this was something she could say or not say. It’s too bad that there is no visible presence.
“The vast majority of LGBTQ people in Clare just live normal lives, but there are times when you want that support or just the idea that there are other people out there like you.”
There is still a certain level of discrimination, albeit far less prevalent than was once the case.
“I’m grown up, it’s not going to ruin my life or whatever, but I have had a couple of occasions where people have offered homophobic insults to me in Clare, and in Mayo. I’ve never had in Galway, interestingly enough, except when canvassing for the marriage equality referendum. Most LGBTQ people will find a largely welcoming community, but there is some level of discrimination.”
“For example schools are really accommodating now and young people are very tolerant, but yet calling someone a homophobic slur word is still the cheap way of offending, among young lads. The work is not all done, I’d say.”
The poetry launch will see LGBTQ culture celebrated, in a way that doesn’t happen very often. “One of the things that we thought about for the first night of the festival, was to bring a bit of culture into it, because it’s Culture Night also.
“As you can imagine we’re going to have loads of people who want a mad, drag, night club event, but we might have other people who want a quieter event.
“There was a really great anthology published in Northern Ireland, there have always been LGBTQ people in Irish writing circles, but their contribution has largely gone unrecognised.
“This anthology tries to look at LGBTQ poets since 2000, there are 31 different poets included, I’m one of them and it’s nice to be included.
“Two of the other poets and myself will be reading at an event in the Women’s Shed/Mná ag Gáire on the 23rd and the book will be available there.”
She says that her own poetry reflects the LGBTQ experience, but is accessible to people from other backgrounds.
“Just because I’m a member of the LGBTQ community it doesn’t mean my poetry is necessarily reflective of that, although some of it is.
“Say if I were to write a poem about grief or about love, it’s quite likely that will have the perspective of my community.”
If people read the poetry, she says they will realise that the concerns of LGBTQ people aren’t very different from those of others.
“If you’re reading this anthology you’ll see what the concerns of LGBTQ people are, being accepted, how to make your way in the world, how do you deal with grief, how do you deal with a break up. It’s the same thing as everyone is dealing with, just a slightly different slant.”
In general most books, films and plays are written from a straight perspective for largely straight audiences, and she likes the fact that efforts are being made to show another experience.
“There’s also a place for us to be reflected. It’s not challenging anyone or their beliefs, just saying there’s also a place for us to be reflected. Not saying there’s anything wrong with you
or your traditions, just saying we are also here.”
She is looking forward to the celebration and says it will be great fun and help bring visibility to the community.
“If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it properly! We have performers and DJs and drag queens, we have a youth event on in the day, Clare Youth Service and a few others are helping us with that.
“Other people are totally invited to come and help us with the celebrations, but just for the day the LGBTQ will be more strongly reflected in what we’re doing.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
