From fear to freedom: This is my story of coming out in Ireland 

This Friday is World Coming Out Day. Jonathan deBurca Butler speaks to Colm O'Gorman and Cian Griffin about their experiences of coming out at different times 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.