Dublin Pride

I headed into the city centre for the Pride parade early yesterday, as I arrive to everything early, especially when I’ve got nothing else to do. I was planning to hang around the route before the parade started in the hopes of meeting people to march with and take pictures of each other. For those not in the know, Toronto’s Pride Parade is perhaps one of the biggest in the world with the whole area around downtown Yonge Street being closed to traffic and people gathering early in the morning for a good spectator spot. Therefore, it was bizarre for me wandering up O’Connell Street that there was no evidence that a parade was about to commence. I saw the odd group of young men, boys really (now that sixteen year olds are starting to come out of the closet, I am beginning to view myself as a veteran) who, with their fluorescent t-shirts and Lady GaGa shades, I assumed were going to the parade, but there was not gathering place for them so they all dispersed. There was such an absence of any expectation in the air, the sidewalks filled with your average-Saturday Dubliners, that I worried I had the wrong day.

I decided I should buy a bottle of water and eat something, so crossing Ha’Penny bridge I bought a huge dish of chicken fried rice and sat in Temple Bar square in the shade. I forgot to mention that it was furiously sunny yesterday, the Celtic Gods smiling down on Ireland’s queers. Anyway, I had barely begun to eat when a man missing teeth starting bugging me for change. I had to tell him ‘sorry, no’ several times before he wandered away. Then these two guys next to be with gruff, working-class accents began talking to me. “Wasn’t he bothering ya?” one barked. “No, it’s fine.” “Ah.” Then he said something completely unintelligible to me. “I’m sorry; I’m Canadian, and I didn’t understand.” “Canadian, are ya? What’s that you’re eating? Chicken friend rice? Nice!” Then a woman with a baby approached and the Irish guy immediately said loudly, “She’s a gyp! She’s a gyp! Don’t give her any money!” And to the woman herself, “Fuck off, will ya!” Then muttering to his friend, “Filth of humanity, if you ask me...”

Thankfully, they left not much longer after that and I finished my chicken fried rice in peace. I walked up to Dame street and sat in the Starbucks waiting for the parade to start. After another forty minutes or so, I came out just in time to gather with some Brazilian women as we could see the front of the parade peek out from the corner of the Irish National Bank building. Although some more spectators joined us, it was very odd to me to see more people marching in the parade than watching it. But I have a theory about gay people; we’d rather be seen than see, rather be watched than watch. It explains the spectacle of the parade, as well as the music favoured by gay clubs. I’ll return to this idea in a bit.

One of the first groups I saw was a queer theatre group headed by a guy in a Canadian flag t-shirt. I kind of wanted to chase after him and ask him where he was from, but also wanted to watch the rest of the parade. What can I say about it? They love their costumes here. Some of them make sense (many riffs on Oscar Wilde, who grew up in Dublin, and his green carnation, a Victorian symbol of homosexuality. As well, a plethora of faeries; what is more gay and more Irish than faeries?) but others were just bizarre. Super man? Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas? Borat? Michael Jackson? Other people looked like they had wandered out of stag parties, still drunk from the night before, and just found themselves marching down Dame street. The thing is, the fact that there were so fewer spectators than I was used to encouraged me to cheer more and wave back at the drag queens. This, combined with the greater number of young people, helped it really feel like a movement and reminded me of what was missing from Toronto’s Pride.

[Not for a second to suggest Dublin’s Pride is benefiter/victim of the same sort of commercialization that occurs in North American Prides. Youtube and Google were inexplicably seemingly two of biggest sponsors, supporting events in which prizes, like Youtube t-shirts and Google snap-bracelets, were given away.]

When I could tell the parade was winding down I decided to jump into it, mostly to see where it was leading to. This marked the first time I had ever ‘marched’ in a parade. We went past my old hostel (*shudder*) and turned down a side street by Christ Church. Then we came to a standstill, with no one really knowing why. Luckily, I found the lad in the Canadian t-shirt and made friends with him (he’s from Manitoba and is named Bruce). We edged our way to the front of the bottleneck to discover that everyone was suppose to gather in a commercial park for performances and speakers, but the security was worried it was getting overcrowded so they had shut the gate on us. A woman in a fluorescent yellow vest told us essentially to go home. We didn’t. People shouted sassy things instead. “Let’s start a riot,” somebody joked. Eventually, they allowed trickles in, and Bruce and I slid through the gate. On the other side, where there was still PLENTY OF ROOM, we found our way to a big grassy area where a drag queen (I think she is famous here, but I keep forgetting her name) was in the middle of a speech.

So I have learned that the Irish government has just been presented with a bill which would allow for “civil partnerships”, which is expected to pass into law this fall. Unfortunately, this ‘separate but equal’ message falls short of giving full equality to same-sex couples, and so has angered activists and apparently divided the community over whether this is a step in the right direction or not. Later, activists dressed as brides and grooms would rip up copies of the bill. The drag queen recognized the divisions felt in the community, and began to sound like Obama; “We are a community, but that doesn’t mean we agree on everything. What it does mean is that more unites us than divides us, and we will be there for each other fighting the same battles!”

Then there were some queer singers who performed their own songs, but honestly the crowd was way more into the drag-like performers (there’s a new sort of drag performance wherein women still dress like women, but in an over the top way, or boys dress like flamboyant gay men, but still men. Call hetero-drag, or something) sing/lip-synch to Kylie or the theme from Slumdog Millionaire or Single Ladies. Gay men especially would much rather use a performance as an excuse to dance and sing along themselves rather than just stand around listening.
I stayed for a remarkably long time and when I finally headed home it was nearing five. Everyone staggered through the downtown, exhausted and sunburnt and dehydrated but happy, like kids returning from a day at the zoo. Except there was this one young guy who was crying and I presume drunk, and I would’ve approached him had I not first see him brush off somebody else for trying to ask if he wanted help. Then somewhere on George street (my walk home was a sunny blur) there was a little group with religious signs (they may have had a Jesus statue), kids handing out pamphlets with icons on them and a very elderly man speaking into a microphone. It was unclear whether this was a Pride-related counter-demonstration or not. Even so, I slipped off the bright yellow cross I had worn all day because I didn’t want to be seen as either being with them or mocking their beliefs. Still, it was a very small group and when I passed the old man was saying something about animal food.

I rested for two hours at home in my thankfully-shady room, watched the end of ‘Tron’ and ate two yogurts for dinner, which is all I felt like. I also drank three cups of water, which I needed, but in hindsight was probably a mistake, as I will explain. I got myself all prettied up to go to Tripod’s official gay pride dance. Tripod is at Harcourt street which is very close to my house, but the tickets sold out early at the parade so I was advised to show up early at the door. I wandered down with a copy of The Irish Independent (so I could catch up on Irish current events), Hello! Magazine (so I could look at pictures of British women in funny hats), and a big ol’ bottle of Pepsi (for energy, you see). This also was a mistake. As I sat beside the door, I began to have to pee. Then people started lining up behind me, and the pressure got worse. There wasn’t enough time to get out of the line to find some pub to run into (plus, I didn’t want to, cause I got there first!) so I just stood there, trying to cross my legs, and think of other things as they slowly, so slowly, set up. At sometime I really thought I may have peed my pants. At 9.05, FIVE MINUTES LATE MIND YOU, they let me go and buy a (ridiculously expensive) ticket and enter the club, and I sprinted to the loo.

That was the most interesting part of the night. Tripod, which is a concert venue, looks like a school auditorium and this combined with the valentine’s day-ish decorations they put up made it feel a bit like a school dance. They played some fun music early on (including ‘You’ve Got The Love’, one of my favourite songs because of its use in the last episode of Sex and the City) but after the performances the DJ settled on repetitive unremarkable techno, and I just didn’t feel like dancing. I was on the look-out for the skizz-bag from Base Bar and had a Joan Crawford-type reaction in the back of my mind (it may have included a threat of “If you ever come near me again, I shall scream/slap you” and the throwing of a cocktail in his face) but as I got drunker (very quickly, due to my miniscule dinner) I stopped worrying. I eventually found my Canadian friend, but he wasn’t really into the music either, and finding myself alone again at some point with no prospects, I headed out. The best part of the evening was probably buying a falafel for the walk home: when you are tired and hungry and drunk, it is heaven. By the time I got a text message from Bruce saying he was heading home, I was already in bed with my sleeping mask on.

Happy Pride!