Jonathan Heron retweetledi
Declan Flynn was a 31-year-old working at Dublin Airport for Aer Rianta. Were he living in 21st Century Dublin you might see him as just another good looking young gay lad smiling in a selfie on Facebook or maybe bopping on the dancefloor of The George with his mates of a Saturday night.
But Declan, and countless others like him, lies cold in the grave now, his young life brutally snuffed out by hatred and ignorance on a cold September night in 1982. Dublin in the early eighties was a grim place to be gay. Criminalisation made it extremely difficult to learn about other LGBT people, let alone actually meet them.
Within this environment of dread and isolation there was an ongoing campaign of harassment, blackmail, assault and robbery against gays actively ignored by the Gardaí.
That fateful night Declan sat down on a park bench beside another young man. Before he knew what was happening he was set upon by a predatory gang who had lain in wait behind some trees. He managed to break free and ran terrified towards the gate of the park but he didn’t make it.
They caught him and laughing they brutally battered him. They kicked and punched him and beat him with sticks. When he stopped moving and they had exhausted themselves they stole his watch and the £4 in his wallet. They left Declan's horribly beaten body where it lay, choking on his own blood. Declan Flynn would pass away shortly afterwards in hospital.
The very same year that Declan died for example a man called Charles Self was viciously murdered, stabbed 14 times. I’ve never felt the expression "Gay bashing" is appropriate. It seems almost dismissive in its simplicity, reductionist in its childishness.
It doesn’t fully articulate the violence, the terror, the chilling effect the crime and its anticipation has on both the LGBT community and wider society as well as the direct victim. It doesn’t illustrate the gruesome wilful denigration, the robbery of the person’s safety and sense of self.
The ages of the perpetrators of (two 18 year olds , a 19 year old, a 17 year old and a 14 year old) and their names (with the exception of the youngest) are a matter public record.
When asked about the crime, one of the killers blithely said: “We were all part of the team to get rid of queers in Fairview Park.”
But it was the deplorable comments of the presiding judge Justice Sean Gannon which most chillingly showed the opinion of the State towards the value of gay life. As he handed out suspended sentences and allowed all the killers to walk free he said: "This could never be regarded as murder.”
Bonfires were lit and street parties were had in celebration in the neighbourhoods in Fairview as the five returned home to heroes' welcomes. Tragically in 1992 one of the five who had walked free broke in to a flat in Ballymun and brutally raped a woman. She was seven months pregnant.
But if the families of these thugs and the justice system would not respond to the horrific crime the wider Irish society was disgusted by it and the gay community, motivated by both righteous anger and understandable fear of a reoccurrence, began to come together and rise up. Disparate groups and concerned individuals were galvanised in to action.
A crowd of almost a thousand people marched from Liberty Hall to the scene of the murder in Fairview Park. Openly gay citizens and their straight supporters from unions, political parties and social organisations stood shoulder to shoulder to express their desire for justice.
The likes of this had never been seen before in Dublin. The visibilty of so many LGBT people on the news was itself shocking to Irish society. Bonded by their outrage and desire for change, a community was formed.
The event lit the fuse on the Irish Gay Rights movement, and that summer, the first Dublin Pride took place, more protest than parade. Two hundred brave vanguards of equality marching from St Stephen’s Green to the GPO. Irish Pride was born.
Dublin City, Ireland 🇮🇪 English
