Cork Pride: 'Gay was a term used to slag me — then it became a word that empowered me'

While parade marcher numbers are just one way of illustrating how far Cork Pride has come in the past 15 years, there are others. Recalling the year fellow activist and human rights campaigner, Colm O’Gorman, was grand marshal, Davis says: “The Pride after-party was always on Grand Parade. One year, we had Colm O’Gorman with us. He was the grand marshal, and we had him positioned on the back of a trailer. When it started to rain, we placed a pop-up tent above him. Naturally this fell down and when it did, you couldn’t see Colm anymore while he was talking. But you could hear him.” 

While an unflappable O’Gorman continued on, unfazed, the ridiculousness of the situation became a catalyst for progress, when the following year, a stage was built on Grand Parade.

That same location would later become a vantage point from which Davis would witness many unforgettable moments including the time he brought fellow community members Toddy Hogan, Kate Moynihan and the late Dave Roche up onto that stage. “As we stood together looking out, we saw this rainbow,” he says. “Made up of the colours people were wearing and the flags they carried, it stretched all the way down as far as McDonalds on Daunt Square.” 

For one who dislikes talking in public, this is something Davis does with prowess and apparent ease. He’s a natural storyteller, albeit one with whom one’s secrets are safe.

As we speak, his reserve is punctuated from time to time by glimpses of an inner mirth that escapes his reserve to come out and play. It happens as he recalls the days when Cork’s Corpus Christi parade took place on the same day as Cork Pride.

“Back then, we’d hold our parade either before or after that parade, because people didn’t want the people in both parades walking down the roads together at the same time. Then one year, the Corpus Christi parade organisers put rainbow bunting up along Patrick Street.

“Everybody thought that we had put that bunting up for Cork Pride.” He pauses then, so a flavour of the Father Ted type hilarity of it all sinks in. That done, he moves on swiftly to express his enthusiasm for this year’s festival.

“This year, we’re looking forward to bringing amazing colour into Cork city and county. We’ll be visiting Mallow, New Twopothouse, Buttevant, Mitchelstown and Fermoy with our Pride on Tour event.” 

To illustrate the importance of this event to individuals, Davis tells of the time when someone anonymously emailed to say that while they wouldn’t be able to come out when the tour came to their small town, they’d leave a flag as a welcome. “It was the tiniest flag,” says Davis. “It had been left up on top of a wall, as they couldn’t put it on their own front door. The gesture spoke a lot about living in rural Ireland at that time.” 

Of course this is something about which Davis knows first-hand. Sex was never spoken about when he was growing up in Vicarstown, County Laois in the 1980s. Recalling not understanding why anyone would call somebody ‘gay’, he says: “I didn’t know what it meant. It was a term used to slag me off. Then later, it became a word that empowered me.” 

He talks then of his earlier years: of dating girls in secondary school, while still not realising he was gay. “Looking back, I now see that I was different. I didn’t like sports. I was quiet and shy and I had an awful stutter. I fought against that when being bullied for being gay.” 

When he eventually ‘came to terms’ with who he was, he was a college student and the awareness wasn’t something he wore comfortably: “I still had underlying homophobia in myself,” he says.

Happily, this was not something that stopped him from meeting his partner Kery, whom he warmly describes as his ‘love’ and the person he wants to share his life with.

A subsequent move to Cork catapulted Davis into what he describes as ‘a gay bubble.’ “I had gay friends and I worked in the gay community. At the same time, I was a board member of a credit union in Laois. There, I was heterosexual Clive. It was as though I was running two lives, living in a parallel universe.” 

He has fond memories of managing the Cork LGBT+ resource centre, known as The Other Place. Some only ever used the side door because they were not out. Others, because it wasn’t safe for them to be themselves outside, would arrive dressed one way, only to change as soon as they got through the door.

Recalling that nobody was judged there, he says: “I was overjoyed to be part of the solution, to be part of the space in which people could be themselves. I say ‘part of it,’ because many great organisations and volunteers did great work to make Cork a safer place for our community.” 

As for what drove him to develop the local Pride parade into an exhilarating week-long celebration, he says: “It was about creating visibility for everyone who identifies as LGBT+. Also for our allies, who are just as vital in this.” 

For Davis, Pride has never been about the people who participated in it: “It was always about those who were looking in from a distance. Those who wanted to participate, but could not, because a parent made a homophobic comment at home, or because of some other circumstance they were in.” 

Recalling 2015, the year Ireland passed the same-sex marriage referendum, Davis says: “There was validation then, in knowing the majority of people who came to vote were in favour of us.

“But now, it’s almost like we are the pit of every far right slogan or joke. That members of our community, by just living our lives, are somehow affecting them. Sometimes our community is used as a weapon by the people who are anti everything.” Asked what he believes the response, if any, should be, he replies: “The theme of Cork Pride this year is ‘Unity in the Community.’ That’s the sort of unity we need.

“Right now, trans healthcare is more important than any other LGBT+ issue. Hatred and lies are hurting people in our community. We need to support one another and call out misinformation together.” 

Eight years ago, when a scarcity of funding saw Davis put on a three-day-week from his job at Gay Project, he moved back to Laois. There, he took the CEO role at Youth Work Ireland, where he’s still employed today.

As for the future, he’s optimistic: “As much damage as the far right are peddling, they’re peddling negative stuff. Our community will always win, because we peddle love and positivity.”