Examiner 180: The long and winding road to equality
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Page 16 of the then-Cork Examiner on May 8, 1979, had a bit of everything.
It was a historic day in Rhodesia as the country's elected parliament met for the first time, marking the end of white minority rule.
Mallow had a new Queen at the Swan International Festival. A photograph showed the Papal Nuncio, Gaetano Alibrandi meeting children undertaking confirmation in Mayfield in Cork City.
In another story, a "massive majority" of the students union at UCC voted in favour of a motion that contraceptives be available to everyone over the age of 16, and for the liberalisation of laws relating to homosexuality.
It was, it's fair to say, a very different time.
Looking back through the cuttings of this newspaper's coverage of same-sex rights is to see Irish society change in two ways: for decades, barely at all, and then at an increasing pace. Yet for those involved, it still must have seemed like an age.
The first mention of homosexuality in the newspaper may be the reference in a story from August 1946 regarding a Labour Party submission on conditions in Portlaoise Prison where, the paper reported, "an effort is made to segregate prisoners into 'virtue' groups - for instance, homosexuals, constituting 30 p.c. are kept apart."
There is no mention of recognition of rights and even into the '60s and '70s, same-sex issues are mentioned fleetingly and only in the context of the criminal justice system or, as per a 1959 report on a court action taken by the singer Liberace against the Daily Mirror in Britain, alleged defamation.
It is November 1970 before there is a change in tone, and it comes in the form of a theatre review: "There were no public protests at the Olympia Theatre last night when The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley's play about homosexuals, opened. No one walked out, declaring themselves shocked. It was not necessary. The play is delicately handled, beautifully produced, extremely funny and contains some of the best acting seen on a Dublin stage for ages."
The play may have had something important to say, but the coverage of same-sex rights is very much of its time, such as the May 1970 article referring to the views of 93-year-old German, Joseph Zerhusen, a man who knew Roger Casement. "There is something about a homosexual that repels a normal human being, but I never got that feeling about Casement," is Zerhusen's painfully antiquated view.
By February 18, 1974, the Cork Examiner had a headline declaring 'New approach urged to homosexuals', over an article stating "a call for a proper understanding of homosexuality by the churches was made by Rev Prof Enda McDonagh of Maynooth College when he spoke at a symposium on homosexuality in TCD on Saturday.
"We should be attempting to change social attitudes and legal provisions insofar as they are oppressive or punitive in any underprivileged or deprived group such as homosexuals,' he said".
In the same piece, Senator Noel Browne, who was the first Irish parliamentarian to champion decriminalisation of homosexuality, referred to people suffering great distress but said changes to public attitudes would need to come ahead of any amending legislation.
And there we have it - the need for laws to change to reflect society, a process described by one of the main voices of that campaign, David Norris, more than a decade later, as an at-times "gruesome and wearying experience".
In a report from March 8, 1977, David Norris - then the national chairman of the Irish Gay Rights Movement - said: "There were more homosexuals than Protestants in the Republic of Ireland". The headline is a classic: '150,000 in Republic are 'gay''. Around the same time, a page-one story told readers that Norris had been among those selected to form part of a Bord Fáilte tourism campaign in the US.
The times were changing, albeit slowly. In June 1980 Norris had taken a legal challenge against the constitutionality of Sections 61 and 62 of the Offence Against the Person Act 1861. A flavour of that legal case is contained in a June 25 article from that year, when in a lengthy court report it almost reads as if Norris is on trial. He has to give an exposition on his own childhood and adolescent feelings, just to make his argument that the laws as they stood did not guarantee equality for people who were gay - "I feel that I am not a full citizen of this country, that the law, even if it has never applied to me, is an insult to me and it classes me as a second class citizen."
Maybe the tide was turning, though it almost certainly didn't feel like it at to those on the ground. Here's a report from June 28, 1980, in which readers are told a Catholic theologian, Fr Joseph O'Leary, had given evidence for Mr Norris. The report also refers to testimony given by Prof Ivan Browne of the Dept of Psychiatry in UCD who "said it was possible for a homosexual to experience the feeling of love as much as it was for the heterosexual." Another report on the case, from July 2, 1980, carries the headline 'Homosexuality "an attack on marriage and family"'.
At least the voices of people directly impacted by the laws now under sustained challenge were finally being heard. A 1983 interview with then 30-year-old Corkman Kieran Rose features passionate and hard-hitting views. Kieran was a member of the Cork Gay Collective, founded in 1980, and wanted a tolerant and supportive society that recognises civil rights.
"The really cynical thing about the Churches's [sic] stand on homosexuality is that within a decade or so it will change as it already has in the United States," he said. According to Liz Doran, the writer of the piece, "[Kieran] himself knows of three gays who have been murdered in Cork and Dublin during the past two years and he argued that the decision by the judge in the Fairview case justifies the killings of gays because of their homosexuality."
That Fairview case, even at this remove, still has the power to shock. On September 10, 1982, a gay man named Declan Flynn was attacked in Dublin’s Fairview Park and later died from his injuries. The five men who attacked him later received suspended sentences for manslaughter. It wasn't the only such incident at the time.
Following his death and outcry over the sentences handed down, Ireland’s first, large-scale gay demonstration took place in Dublin in March 1983, followed by the country's first Pride parade in June of that year. On March 21, 1983, in the top corner of page three, the Cork Examiner carried a story under the headline 'Gay rights demo'. Eamon Somers, chairman of the National Gay Federation, said: "The politicians thought we would all go back into our closets and forget the situation. It is up to us not to go back into our closets."
By the following month, Norris's constitutional challenge had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was defeated in a majority judgement. One of those in that majority, Chief Justice O'Higgins, said homosexuality was "harmful to health". 'Gay Rights are 'morally wrong'' blared the headline.
Norris kept going, taking the legal challenge to Strasbourg in Europe although admitting, by April 1988, that he had come to the end of the road after 14 years of campaigning on the issue. Vindication arrived in October 1988, when he won in Europe, although the page-one story in the Cork Examiner leads, somewhat contrarily and maybe reflecting its conservative readership at the time, on the view of Family Solidarity that the ruling "changed nothing".
The ruling was welcomed by others. Inside the paper, there is an opinion piece by Vincent JG Power, a lecturer in law at UCC, under the headline 'The Norris Ruling: a sword turned inwards', in which he argued that simply ignoring the ruling would be "unrealistic" in terms of international relations and unlawful in terms of international law. According to the author, ignoring the European court ruling "would discredit Ireland internationally".
Fast forward to June 23, 1993, the day before the long-awaited decriminalisation of homosexuality. A page-one story outlines how Fine Gael may seek to amend the Bill on the age of consent, while the Catholic Church reaffirms that decriminalisation will change nothing as far as its views are concerned.
Two days later the story is again on page one, with political editor Liam O'Neill writing that the Bill passed without a vote, and telling readers that "champagne corks popped as gay rights activists celebrated outside the gates of Leinster House".
More than 20 years later the marriage equality referendum was held in May 2015. By then we had already seen civil partnership ushered into being in 2010 and the election of openly LGBT TDs to Dáil Éireann - Jerry Buttimer, John Lyons and Dominic Hannigan.
A big legal change was on the way. The page-one story told us that voting had been "brisk and early" in the referendum and the following day, the historic passing of the referendum dominates page one. 'Plans to tap into $200bn gay spend' declares the headline, but the story is driven by the photographs of happy couples, not least the main picture featuring Katriona Hourihan and Nora Dennehy - soon to be married and holding flutes of champagne.
One of those with the scars of battle is veteran campaigner Tonie Walsh, heavily involved in the LGBT civil rights movement since 1979 and who set up in the late '80s and also serving as editor for a time.
Tonie knows his history and knows that some newspapers deigned to use the descriptor 'gay' in inverted commas right up to the late 1980s, and that the UCC Gay Soc fought one of the longest battles for formal recognition of a university LGBT society - " a fascinating story", he says.
"Since the beginnings of a vocal and visible LGBT civil rights movement on the island of Ireland, some 50 years ago, the print and broadcast media has evolved its coverage from one of prejudiced disinterest to empathetic engagement," he says.
"In this, the media has been no different from most of civil society and statutory Ireland. Branded as criminals and social outcasts, [LGBTI+] men and women have been considered fair game for the most egregious forms of othering: reductive stereotyping, ugly discrimination and sustained hostility that too often seemed to legitimise sporadic acts of violence.
"In time, Irish society began to grow up and throw off its post-colonial, feudalistic shackles. Better education, more wealth and the opportunity to get off our little damp rock and travel, inward migration, membership of the EEC/EU and significant legislative reform, public service broadcasting: all these fed into creating a more self-aware, more dynamic and more compassionate society.
"It helped also that we were served by a new generation of journalists and broadcasters better attuned to these new socio-cultural currents and keen to report with greater alacrity and inclusiveness on the extraordinary journey we've been on as a society these past few decades.
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One of those with the scars of battle is veteran campaigner Tonie Walsh, heavily involved in the LGBT civil rights movement since 1979, the first openly gay person to stand for election, and who set up in the late '80s and also serving as editor for a time.
Tonie knows his history and knows that some newspapers deigned to use the descriptor 'gay' in inverted commas right up to the late 1980s and that the UCC Gay Soc fought one of the longest battles for formal recognition of a university LGBT society - " a fascinating story", he says.
"Since the beginnings of a vocal and visible LGBT civil rights movement on the island of Ireland, some 50 years ago, the print and broadcast media has evolved its coverage from one of prejudiced disinterest to empathetic engagement," he says.
"In this, the media has been no different from most of civil society and statutory Ireland. Branded as criminals and social outcasts, [LGBTI+] men and women have been considered fair game for the most egregious forms of othering: reductive stereotyping, ugly discrimination and sustained hostility that too often seemed to legitimise sporadic acts of violence.
"In time, Irish society began to grow up and throw off its post-colonial, feudalistic shackles. Better education, more wealth and the opportunity to get off our little damp rock and travel, inward migration, membership of the EEC/EU and significant legislative reform, public service broadcasting: all these fed into creating a more self-aware, more dynamic and more compassionate society.
"It helped also that we were served by a new generation of journalists and broadcasters better attuned to these new socio-cultural currents and keen to report with greater alacrity and inclusiveness on the extraordinary journey we've been on as a society these past few decades.
"It's good to remember that the story of [LGBTI+] liberation is not some minority pursuit. It is ultimately the story of an entire society liberating itself."