Farrell reveals anger at bullying of gay brother

ACTOR Colin Farrell has revealed his anger about the beatings his older brother Eamon got in school for being gay.

The Dubliner claimed intolerance of people who are different is learned at home and in classrooms but, he said, hate and bullying can have fatal consequences.

Eamon Farrell married his partner Steven Mannion in Canada last summer and the couple celebrated with family and friends in Dublin just after Christmas.

Colin Farrell said his brother suffered physical and emotional abuse, and that frequent beatings and taunting were a constant part of his school years.

“I can’t remember much about the years of physical and emotional abuse my brother Eamon suffered. I was very small. The thing I do remember though, quite literally, is blood on his school shirt when he came home in the afternoon,” he said.

“I didn’t understand at that time the concept of ‘difference’. Back then, as now, he was just my big brother,” he said, in a statement from Los Angeles.

He was speaking in support of a campaign to tackle homophobic bullying, launched at Eamon Farrell’s National Performing Arts School in Dublin.

The 33-year-old actor said bullying is torture and a betrayal of basic human decency whose scars reach way into the future of its survivors.

“But the saddest truth is that not all children survive it. It is a potentially fatal societal illness and must be respected and not feared,” he said.

Farrell said his brother’s intelligence and wit made him laugh and made him aspire to Eamon’s strength and goodness, but that he represented fear for many people.

“To many of the students of his school, however, he was to be feared. He was to be turned away from. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t,” said the In Bruges and Alexander star.

The STAND UP campaign organised by BeLonG To Youth Services runs until April 18 and is supported by Children’s Ombudsman Emily Logan, who said society has an important role in ensuring everybody is treated with dignity and respect. TV presenter and former Big Brother contestant Anna Nolan said it is important that gay young people are supported by friends.

BeLonG To Youth Services works with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people and runs 12 youth groups. Research published last year shows most LGBT people start coming out about their sexuality at 17 but more than half have been bullied at school and one-in-five skip school due to fear.