Curtain rises on abuse and sexual discrimination in Ireland’s theatres

Abuse and sexual discrimination have always been part and parcel of the theatre in Ireland, right back to the old days of the Abbey and the Gate, writes Terry Prone

Let us not dress up the past as better than it was, in order to unfavorably compare the present with it. Particularly at the Gate Theatre.

Suggestions have been made in other newspapers at the weekend, that because Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards were shining lights of the time when they ran the Gate and because they were known to be gay partners, that they’d personified the capacity of the arts, and in particular the theatre, to be places of freedom where sexual discrimination didn’t happen.