Colm O'Gorman: When I first came out homosexuality was illegal

As we celebrate Cork Pride Week, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland, Colm O'Gorman, reflects on why Pride's message of tolerance, acceptance and love is needed more than ever

And the Oscar goes to... Colm and Jake! Colm o'Gorman at his local beach in Co Wexford, with his rescue dogs, Jake and Oscar. Picture: Mary Browne

I am at that stage of life where when I talk about some of my formative experiences, younger people shake their heads and express their surprise at how different the Ireland I grew up in is to the one that they know. 

A stage of life where what I think of as recent events, are becoming, well, history. It is more than five years for instance since the referendum on marriage equality. Within another five years, we will have a generation of young LGBTQ people who will not know what it was like to grow up in a country where they were denied the right to marry the person they love. Isn’t that a lovely thought? A generation who will never have experienced that sort of state-imposed discrimination.