Loafers: Documentary at IndieCork traces history of famous gay bar 

Seaman-turned-bar owner Derrick Gerety is among the contributors to a film about a Douglas Street bar that acted as a haven for Cork's gay and alternative crowds in a less-enlightened era 

Derrick Gerety at Loafers bar on Douglas Street in Cork in the 1980s.

A documentary marking the fortieth anniversary of Loafers bar in Cork will have its premiere at the IndieCork film festival. Loafers, possibly the longest running gay bar in the country on Cork’s Douglas Street, was opened by former seaman turned gay rights activist, Buddhist and meditation teacher, Derrick Gerety in 1983 before closing under different ownership in 2015.

As the director of the documentary, Orla Egan says, Loafers was a very welcome addition to the city’s social scene. In its first five years, it attracted artsy alternative types, School of Art students, the staff from the Quay Co-Op and activists. It subsequently evolved into a more-or-less exclusively gay bar.