From fear to freedom: This is my story of coming out in Ireland
Colm O’Gorman in Cronellard, County Wexford. He says his 'coming out journey' began in 1984 — a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland. Picture: Mary Browne
Colm O’Gorman was 17 when he ran away from home and took the bus to Dublin. After years of abuse by a priest in Wexford, he’d had enough. For six months he wandered the streets of the capital, grappling not only with the abuse, but with who he was.
“The only feelings I had around sex and sexuality were ones of fear and shame and they all related to those experiences of being abused,” says the 58-year-old human-rights campaigner.
“It corrupted my understanding of who I was. At school, there were lots of derogatory terms flying around.
"They didn’t use the word ‘gay’ or ‘queer’. I was bullied for being the class poof. It sounds ridiculous that, at 16 or 17, I still didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t.”
Colm’s coming-out journey started at the National Gay Federation in Temple Bar in 1984; a time when homosexuality in Ireland was still illegal and visibility around being gay was negligible and overwhelmingly negative.
“I didn’t have any role models,” Colm says. “The only gay people we saw were very stereotypical characters, often quite offensive. So there was nothing to look to, to give me a sense of positivity.”
“So the first time I went into the Federation and I walked up the stairs to the dancefloor, I just stood there in shock,” Colm says.
I couldn’t be who I was with my own family or in my local community, and now I had found a family, really, a group of people who became really important to me. I had found a safe place to explore and find out who I was.”
Though coming out to himself had been a relief, coming out to his family was trickier. It happened slowly and in stages. Colm first told one of his sisters.
Through her, Colm’s father found out, and, by the time he had returned home for the first time, four years after that epiphany in Temple Bar, everyone in his family knew he was gay. Still, nobody said anything.
“I didn’t talk to my father about it until years later,” says Colm. “It was 11 years after I’d left home that we had that conversation. I remember, we were out for a drink and he said to me, ‘I just don’t get it’.
"I told him that there were people in the world who would cheerfully kill me for who I am. I explained to him that I didn’t choose this. It is who I am.”
A few weeks later, during a weekly call home, Colm’s father told him that he loved him and broke down crying.
“My sister told me later that she found him sitting on the bed with a tea towel on his face from the tears,” he says.
“We just became really close then. Very sadly, he was diagnosed with cancer in December of that year and he died three weeks later. But we had had that significant breakthrough.”
Though they are generations apart, Colm’s story echoes that of influencer Cian Griffin.
“I knew I was different growing up,” says the 29-year-old, “but I couldn’t pinpoint why. There was no education, visibility, or representation.
“So I didn’t have a name for it. The word ‘gay’ was thrown around in school, but it had completely different connotations. I didn’t associate it with sexuality and it was always negative, uncool, and it was something you didn’t want to be.”
It wasn’t until Cian found himself attracted to someone of the same sex that he understood that difference.
“I went back to someone’s house after an 18th birthday party,” says the Wicklow native.
“We had had a few drinks and I had a bit of a breakdown, where I admitted to liking a friend. He wasn’t there. Could you imagine the drama? But I ended up coming out that night to my closest friends.
“It had kind of bubbled to the surface and forced its way out. I wasn’t ready to deal with it. A few people knew, but I didn’t properly come out until much later.”
After school, Cian went to University College Dublin to study languages, including Irish. There, he says, he found his tribe and began to explore ideas around sexuality through his radio show, Gaylgeoiri.
“There were enough degrees of separation to not get back to my English-speaking life. And I used that vehicle until I was ready to amalgamate the two lives.”
People soon began to notice Cian’s activity and ideas on his Instagram page, where he often pushes the envelope around gender stereotypes, particularly in the world of fashion. In 2020, he was invited to chat with Jennifer Zamperelli on her 2FM radio show.
“The station was always on at home, so there was no way I was going to get away with it anymore,” says Cian.
“I rang my mother and spoke to her for about 20 minutes. I think I came out around the 19th minute.” His mother reacted with a nonchalant ‘OK’ and quickly moved on to tell Cian that his grandmother had tried to call him with a remote control she had picked up at her care home.
"That this was the outstanding memory from his coming-out to his family is testimony to their acceptance of his sexuality. He is well aware that others have not been so lucky.
“Ninety-five percent of me was sure everything would be OK,” he says. “But there was that little doubt. I have had close friends who were rejected by their families.
"Even the year I came out, 2020, one of my friends had been discovered by his sister and his parents were not OK with it. So a part of me wanted to make sure I had established myself with my own friends, just to have that safety blanket.”
While, in 2024, news of rejection might surprise some, not so Colm. Though coming out is undoubtedly easier than it was, today’s difficulties present themselves differently.
There has been a noticeable increase in abuse of, and even violence against, the LGBT+ community. That fear holds people back from expressing themselves.
“Today, if you identify as LGBTQ+, particularly on certain social media, you can expect an onslaught of abuse,” says Colm.
“The reality is, it’s a tiny number of people. I don’t think it’s the norm, but it’s significant. And I think that can have a huge impact on the people who are targets of the abuse and on young LGBTQ+ people, who will not feel safe or free to come out.
"In some cases, you will have families who are accepting of their sons or daughters being gay, but they might remain fearful of how the world might treat them.
“I think that’s there again, now. It’s becoming more challenging and that worries me.”
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