Resolutions 2016: Refusing white supremacy

Some of us may be wizened old queers with crusted-over hearts, but even we can find promise in the New Year. 2015 has been a tough year for hope. But -- mercifully -- white privilege has been made so stark that it has completely undone the idea of bystanders. We're all in the soup, and it's how we swim around in it that makes the difference. Here are some ideas for pledges to white people to avoid supporting white supremacy, where we have the...

Read More

Writing ourselves into history.

Thanks to Maggie Lally and Lisa Fane for the photo! Here's a photo from our best-ever evening out: a warm and friendly toast at the end of a long, bitter road. Hooray for constant friends! Incredible as it may seem, we now have to write ourselves into history. (We will, it's all good!) There are always the deniers. New Yorks' Irish and Irish American influential homophobes spent many years denying the actual existence of Irish LGBT people, and...

Read More

Thanks and goodbye to Brian Friel

Brian Friel, by Colin Davidson "For the late playwright the past and our images of it were slippery and treacherous. Truth lay not in public facts but in private fictions." Read Fintan O'Toole: The Truth According to Brian Friel (10/2/...

Read More

Step out for a victory celebration! This Saturday.

Hey everyone! WE WON!!! The victory in the St. Patrick's Day parade belongs to everyone who supported the protests and organizing over the last 25 years. Stop by for a toast with Irish Queers! Saturday, Oct. 3 5-7pm Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher St. NYC A toast to never accepting crumbs instead of justice. And to communities sticking together in our many battles against police bigotry, the religious right, and big money politics. YES...

Read More

WE WON!

OMG!!!! We seriously won. We are happy and relieved to announce that, after 25 years of struggle, we have won! The NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade has dropped its bigoted ban: an Irish LGBTQ contingent will finally march with its own banner in the parade next March 17th. From the beginning, our demand has been for an Irish LGBTQ contingent to march behind their own banner saying who they are, like all other contingents. Today’s decision to invite...

Read More

Irish Queers statement on John Dunleavy’s ouster

After John Dunleavy’s 25 years of being the standard-bearer for religious homophobia, Irish Queers are of course glad to see him go. Dunleavy’s contributions to the Irish community include likening Irish LGBT people to the KKK, and claiming that being openly gay is a political statement (while insisting with a straight face that the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade is not a political event.) His positions finally became untenable; it’s only incredible that it has taken so long. The reasons behind Dunleavy’s ouster are something to celebrate. In...

Read More

Watching Ireland's gay marriage referendum from queer NYC

Photo: mashable.com Along with the rest of the world, we're watching Ireland today for the marriage referendum. We're not big on marriage… gay marriage in the US has been used as a way to take apart the queer movement that sees gender, race, class, health care, housing, policing, and corporate power as all part of the same web. But... Ireland is another place. In Ireland, the campaigning around the referendum has...

Read More

Irish Queers gives it back to OUT@NBC (video)

Today, the day before the annual NYC St. Patrick's Day parade [protest], we thought we should swing by OUT@NBCUniversal's Facebook page. We're already completely appalled by OUT@NBC, the corporate gay/straight/marketing alliance that's marching in the antigay parade to the exclusion of the actual Irish queer groups who have been shoved aside for the last quarter century. But the video we found on their Facebook wall surpassed our expectations of...

Read More

Press release: At Tues. parade protest, plans to celebrate Irish LGBTQ icons, Bronx cheer for corporate sponsors

PRESS RELEASE – for immediate release Date: March 15, 2015 Contact: Emmaia Gelman on 917-517-3627 Irish LGBTQ Protest of Exclusion Continues at 2015 NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade Irish Queers welcome support from NYC officials & Ireland; condemn corporate sponsors. Press Conference: Tues. March 17, 10:45am at Fifth Ave below W. 57th St. Protest: Tues. March 17, 11am-1pm, same location. Irish Queers and allies will protest the exclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups from the St. Patrick's Day Parade this Tuesday, March 17 at 11am. This...

Read More

Thanks for a beautiful night.

Under a veil of snow, in a warmly lit cellar painted with murals of dancers, with full glasses, and in friendly company -- that's how Irish Queers and supporters spent last night at the Parlour. Thanks again to Colm Tóibín, Sarah Schulman, and Charles Rice-Gonzalez for reading, storytelling, and drawing the connections between us all. Also to our surprise musical guest Susan McKeown, whose music and friendship have been...

Read More

City Limits: Mayor de Blasio can do more than boycott

Exposing the parade organizers' sideways cuts at a religious "free speech" right to discrimination, and the NYPD and City Hall's wildly underreported support for the bigoted message of the parade... And calling on a mayor who has shown he cares about this issue to step all the way up to end the excuses. Mayor must reckon with St. Patrick's Parade Legacies 3/2/15 http://citylimits.org/2015/03/02/op-ed-mayor-must-reckon-with-st-patricks-parade-legacies/ "De Blasio's boycott alone may not be enough to end the discrimination, but he has the authority...

Read More

Statement on de Blasio boycott, Guinness, and NBC - March 3, 2015

Statement from Irish Queers and allies March 3, 2015 We are heartened that Mayor Bill de Blasio gets that the inclusion of NBC’s corporate gay group in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is, as he said on Sunday, “too small a change to merit a lot of us participating who have wanted to see an inclusive parade.” To end the 24-year boycott of the parade the organizers need to include identifiable Irish LGBTQ groups—who have long been welcomed in St. Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland. We are angered but not surprised that Guinness, which had long sponsored...

Read More

(Unless you work for NBC) Protest the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade 2015.

Like (almost) everyone, we hoped that 2015 would see the end of the ban on Irish LGBT groups marching in the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade. Tragically, the religious-right leopards have not changed their homophobic spots. Under pressure to lift the ban, they've admitted OUT@NBC, a gay employee and marketing group of their sponsor, to march. Irish queer contingents -- who would show that Irish LGBT people are actually part of the community -- are still...

Read More

What IrishCentral says, and what it means.

Photo: Niall O'Dowd's Facebook page, where he declareshimself an "expert in all things Irish and Irish American." We've often thought of starting a section on this blog called "Why does the Irish Voice/IrishCentral  hate us now?" The publisher Niall O'Dowd, and his wife/columnist Debbie McGoldrick, have devoted a LOT of effort to dumping on us. Especially when we're winning a little on the parade issue, they inevitably print a story that...

Read More

March 3 - Colm Tóibín, Sarah Schulman, Charles Rice-Gonzalez for Irish Queers!

We are bursting with the announcement of our upcoming reading and fundraiser-ette! And grateful for some public, celebratory Irish and queer space; there's not much of it. Colm Tóibín, Sarah Schulman, and Charles Rice-Gonzalez will read from their work. (Yes, we are star-studded, thank you for noticing!) We may also have a special musical guest... stay tuned for that announcement! It all happens on March 3, 6:30pm at The Parlour on W....

Read More

Irish & LGBTQ groups, elected officials renew boycott of 2015 parade (Press release)

Photo: @IvanPer4 (Ivan Pereira, AM-NY) PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release Date: Feb. 17, 2015 Contact:  Emmaia Gelman, 917-517-3627, irishqueers@gmail.com BOYCOTT OF NYC ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE CONTINUES IN 2015 Irish and LGBTQ groups and elected officials reject parade’s discrimination; secret deal with OUT@NBC leaves in place the long-standing ban on Irish LGBTQ groups. New York – Irish and LGBTQ community groups and elected officials...

Read More

Letter & Card writing to prisoners -- second Sundays of the month

Please join Irish Queers' second Sunday of the month letter and card writing to prisoners, and pass along info to others. (Featuring tea and snacks, obv!) 3-5 pm, Sunday:  January 11, February 8, and March 8 Call or email for address! irishqueers@gmail.com t. 212.289.1101. (The apartment has an old codger of a dog for those that might have a dog allergy.)&nbs...

Read More