Founded in 2020, Quare Clare is the first fully recognised LGBT+ organisation in Clare. Amazingly, it was originally set up when a member of the LGBT+ community fled their own country because of their sexuality, and could find no visible queer presence in Clare.
“It was a person in direct provision in Lisdoonvarna, a person who had to flee their own country because of their own sexuality, who was the spark for Quare Clare. When they arrived in Clare they couldn’t see any visibility, there was no community,” said Orla Vaughan, a member of the Quare Clare board.
“They didn’t know if they were accepted or not. When they googled ‘Gay Clare’, they couldn’t find any information on any organisation in Clare who could guide them or any event. There was nothing. The different organisations who were helping the people in direct provision looked around and realised that that person was right, there was no visibility at all in Clare. There was absolutely nothing.”
Clare PPN, the Clare Travellers Association, the Women’s Network of Clare and the Clare Local Development Company came together to found Quare Clare.
“They decided to start Quare Clare. It is great that these organisations would start something, but really what they needed to do was set it up, and then give it back to the community, and that is what they did. They found queer people in the community who wanted to run with this idea,” said Orla.
“They had their first Pride in Shannon in 2022, followed by a Pride event in Ennis in 2023, which was the first ever Pride March in the county. This year was just our third year.”
Quare Clare runs a number of events including a brunch on the last Sunday of each month and a cinema night on the second Saturday of each month.
“Pride is a small part of our year. We are a rural community so we can’t do Pride in the same way as Dublin, Galway or Limerick,” said Orla.
“We have our Pride at the end of September because we can’t compete with the summer Pride events. Our main focus in Clare is to see how we can support the community and make ourselves visible when there is no visibility. Pride is not just one day, you shouldn’t be hiding in the closet for 364 days of the year and come out for one day.
“We had a lot of enquiries after Pride this year and a lot more people are coming onboard. We do a lot around transport, we are a rural county, so transport is really critical for people.”
According to Karina Murray, Quare Clare can have a big impact on LGBT+ people in Clare, especially the next generation.
“It is brilliant to have something in Clare, it has been a long time coming. We have a minimum of two events every month and more and more people are coming. There used to be just four or five people coming to the events but now we are getting 15 or 20 people for regular events, at Pride we had around 150 people. That was unimaginable three of four years ago,” she said.
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and blogger who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.