The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
CRUEL, sickening homophobic violence overshadowed Garrii Bailey’s teenage years in Shannon, but now he is bringing his drag act back to his hometown in November. In the aftermath of last year’s same-sex marriage referendum it is easy to forget how deeply ingrained homophobia was, to the point that violence and verbal abuse aimed at gay people was relatively commonplace, something which often went unremarked upon. But Garrii’s stories of growing up in Shannon during the 1990s shine a light on just how intolerant things were in the quite recent past. “I’m kind of open about speaking about it now because I feel like I’ve got respect for being who I want to be and I feel like I can talk about it. We had our house bricked, egged; my mum’s car got thrashed. I used to have to walk down a boreen to get home and I’d be petrified. I even walked through it the other day and I was …
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