Robinson: Gay rights leaders afraid to be photographed in ‘93

Former president Mary Robinson said the reluctance of some LGBT leaders to be photographed at Áras an Uachtaráin, when she signed the bill decriminalising homosexuality in 1993, showed her how frightening it was to be gay in Ireland.

In a new documentary, A Different Country, on RTÉ tomorrow, she recalls how she was proud to sign the bill into law on July 7, 1993.

But she was surprised when activists from Glen, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, who were invited to Áras an Uachtaráin to celebrate the new bill, told her they were still not fully out to family and work colleagues.