Right, I’ve been stewing for far too long. I’ve been saying “Don’t get me started” for a while now, to anyone who’d listen. So, to put them out of their misery, I think I’d better get started. Time to get it off my chest.

To begin with. Nama. Or, more particularly, Anglo-Irish. I’m not an economist, but I strongly believe it should have been let go bust. But I don’t think Brian Lenihan had a choice. Ireland didn’t have a choice. The EU wouldn’t tolerate it. What’s more important: I am fairly sure that the EU wouldn’t have tolerated it under Bruton/Burton either. In return for keeping Anglo-Irish “alive”, Nama was funded by the ECB, and wildly creative accounting was permitted to exclude the enormous debt from our national balance sheet. It’s the politics of saving face, of denying reality.

The European aversion to a “fire sale” scenario is what underpins Nama, and yet, if you think about it, a fire sale is precisely what Irish entrepreneurs of the future need, to get this country going again. Give them access to the empty office blocks and housing estates at the real market value, (ie bargain basement) and let them build up new businesses from scratch. If everything was reset to its real value, then we would be ideally placed to take advantage of a world economic upturn- because Irish and multinational companies would be able to set up here so cheaply, and start employing lots of people in cheap empty factories with employees moving into cheap accommodation.

The money ringfenced to save Anglo-Irish could then go to support individuals caught in negative equity in their primary homes. There is no guarantee that it would “work” for them, anymore than there is a guarantee that it would “work” for Anglo Irish, but at least with home-owners, the terrifying prospect of being made homeless would be removed. To their credit, the Greens have been pushing hard for this “My Nama” proposal, and it has to happen soonest. It is the single most anxiety-provoking feature of this economic depression, and people would be far less worried about the future, and more optimistic, if they felt safe in their own homes. Economic recovery is a psychological thing, not just a matter of statistics.

Preserving prices in suspended animation for a decade does nothing but stagnate, stifle, suffocate. It’s a question of natural cycles – things have to die, to permit new growth to emerge from the rich humus of decaying institutional corpses. Phoenixes arise out of ashes, not out of deep freezers, preserving the living dead with a semblance of life, with air conditioning to suck the stink of gangrene away. Time to bury the dead.

However. We don’t have the option of doing an Iceland. We blew the money that the EU poured into our economy, but the price the EU is extracting from us now is typically European – fudging and shoring up. When you think of it, however, it’s how most countries work.

If we were to leave the euro, and renege on the debts that the banks piled up under our noses, our currency would not be worth the paper it was printed on, foreign investment would collapse, and we would then have to learn what real self-sufficiency was all about. Green ideas of sustainability would be the only ones that would make sense – but in a sort of grim post-apocalyptic way. The only things that might save us would be that we could be an exporter of energy – thanks to wind and wave power, schemes like Spirit of Ireland, and the new UK interconnector. But we would have to forget all notions of being able to afford foreign goods for a generation. I am not so much of a fundy Luddite to welcome that. I like my iPhone too much. Does that make me shallow?

I do believe that Fianna Fáil should be punished severely at the polls next time, for the evident mismanagement of the country prior to the last election. But I do also believe that they are not doing as badly as the opposition claims in dealing with the mess. Would Fine Gael have accepted unpaid leave for public servants,  as opposed to wage cuts in line with deflation? They’d never have gone there. Where would that have left Labour?

I could go on about how affected I am personally by this recession, as a self-employed person, but I won’t. Let’s just say that I, and everyone I know, is coping with less money. But it seems terribly un-PC to point out how dramatically prices are falling.  There was scarce mention in the media about the latest OECD inflation figures, released 2nd March, – because they don’t suit the media’s current, unswerving commitment to foment strife.

In January this year, consumer prices were a whopping 3.9% lower in Ireland than a year ago, the lowest drop in the 30-nation OECD. Nine out of ten countries in that organisation are coping with rising prices. The year before that, in 2008/2009, prices in Ireland fell 2.6%. Doesn’t that make it over a 6% drop in prices since 2008, approximately? Gas is a whopping 25% cheaper than it was in May 2009. Why doesn’t this get front page news, to help people get some perspective on what is happening in the economy, and to their wage packets? It means that, in real terms, Ireland is doing what it needs to do, but can’t do because of the euro – it is the equivalent of devaluing our currency. It may seem painful, or arbitrary, or unfair, and in many ways it is, but in real terms, it’s a hell of a lot fairer than the chaos of hyperinflation, which would inevitably follow if we left the euro.

There is a lot of rage around, understandably. But as Ryan Tubridy said the other day on the radio, (I’m getting over my allergy to him recently), we Irish love blaming others so much that we come out of the womb with a finger pointed.

The truth is, we’re furious with ourselves. We blame Fianna Fáil, we despise the Greens for propping up Fianna Fáil, and yet it was we ourselves who voted Fianna Fáil into government for so long. The fury that is driving the petty and mean-minded industrial action in the public service is because, let’s be honest, the labour movement feels conned by backing Fianna Fáil for so long. Bertie “I’m a socialist” Ahern was no such thing, and well we knew it.

We Irish are lousy at empowering ourselves. We love to feel beholden to others, but we are wary of changing the system that disempowers us. Look at Willie O’Dea – a very successful politician in Irish, clientelist terms. Not because he did anything for his constituency, but he was a master at the art of fixing things for people, of demonstrating how powerful he was in making things happen for his constituents on an individual level. Because there is no independent ombudsman or tribunal where ordinary people can go to get help with their entitlements when it comes to medical cards or social housing. That would be too transparent, too fair, too equitable. But instead of challenging him to think selflessly and creatively to improve the lot of everyone in his constituency/country, they preferred to feel indebted to him and touch the forelock and give him their number one. We love giving away our power. We deserve what comes of it.

I hope come the next election that people who do feel angry about social inequality on this island will vote massively for Labour, not Fine Gael, because I do not believe their values are so different from Fianna Fáil’s. And, naturally, I hope that the Greens get some credit, eventually, for the relief that“My Nama” will give individuals in distress, for the introduction of proper planning law, (if Fine Gael stops filibustering it), for a reformed public service, for the greening of the national brand that a GM-free Ireland will bring, and for the rewards of the enlightened energy policy that will result in us being an exporter of energy when peak oil comes, as it is bound to do come the next boom.

But I doubt it.

</grumpyoldman OFF>

I started the campaign to rename the park after Oscar Wilde,  (which has thousands of members now) and it’s received a fair bit of media attention. The idea was not mine, it’s been suggested before, by Rory O’Neill and others, but Ryan’s fall from grace gives Dubliners a window of opportunity for it to happen. But the idea has met with fierce opposition from some Catholic quarters.

Colum Kenny wrote in the Sunday Independent about the proposal: “(it) seems strange… calling it after someone who frequented London rent boys and secured youngsters for sex in North Africa (whatever Wilde’s undoubted literary merits) is not the best option.”

“We can’t name city park after Wilde who ‘hunted young boys’ for sex” screamed the headline in the Evening Herald: “Writer’s activities no different to church abuse says professor”. The professor in question, Joseph S. O’Leary, a Maynooth graduate who now writes and blogs on literature and theology, and teaches in a university in Tokyo, was reportedly “amazed” at the suggestion to name the park after the writer. “Ryan is accused of lacking vigilance in preventing the very behaviour that Wilde and Gide indulged in without scruple”, he said. “How does this make Ryan a villain and Wilde a hero?”

I suggested online that, at the heart of the objections to honouring Wilde, there seems to be a reluctance to observe the crucial distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex, and that, however much sex one has, it does not make one an abuser. In response, O’Leary wrote to me saying that, according to my logic, my disapproval of Archbishop Ryan should lead to the removal of Wilde’s statue from the park as well. “In both cases the good that the men did is overshadowed by the evil of which they are accused.” After indicating to him that I would rather not engage in private discussions on the matter, that I’d favour open debate, he then sent me the most astonishing message:

“Busy archbishops may have trouble keeping track of deviants in their clergy and handling complaints from people like Andrew Madden (whose statements in the Irish Times today suggest that he must have been very difficult to satisfy) but dizzy queens obsessed with and addicted to the most louche and lawless forms of sexual behaviour (thinking that they were liberators in advance of their time) are sure to find themselves in a far deeper quagmire than any archbishop.” He also noted that Wilde and Bosie were never prepared to “justify” that phase of their existence, so “they cannot be held up as NAMBLA-style martyrs of free love either”. He ended his message with an entreaty to “take warning from the from the experience of the Dublin clergy; any appearance of collusion with “paedophile” offenses is now exposed to grimmest media and police scrutiny!”

The value judgments in this correspondence from Professor O’Leary need to be deconstructed and understood. Not because I’d lose sleep if the park was eventually named after someone else, but because these attitudes are still widely prevalent in Irish society and are judgmental and destructive. I’ll deal with each one in reverse order:

His final warning to me is redundant. I have already paid the price for an “appearance of collusion with ‘paedophile’ offenses’” when I heavily criticized the film “Fairytale of Kathmandu” and the way it portrayed Cathal Ó Searcaigh as a child abuser. The vitriol aimed at me personally was quite disturbing, so I cannot imagine what he has had to endure. I know the nature of the attacks, and I know also that they are misguided.

There is no necessity to put “paedophile” in quotation marks. Generally, paedophilia is understood to refer to sexual attraction to prepubescent children, and there are no quotation marks necessary to apply that label to the priests who abused the children in their care. It is a crime and should remain so; indeed I believe that a convicted paedophile who has received treatment in prison, and then goes on to re-offend on his release, should be permanently deprived of his freedom. It is that bad a crime. The damage done can be devastating and long-lasting. At the root of the trauma of child sex abuse is a deep sense of loss of trust and safety in the world, and a lingering sense of impotence, the result of someone in authority having taken advantage of them. There are also the complex and often nightmarish effects of early sexualization on an adult survivor. But a particularly odious element to clerical abuse is the way in which the child is pickled in a toxic shame, because of the way Judeo-Christian religion works using internalized guilt as a method of mind-control. It can take a long time for a survivor of child sex abuse to shake off the belief that they are wicked to the core. When a child’s faith in goodness and god is destroyed, and when the institutions and society that allowed this psychological and spiritual carnage to take place turn a blind eye, it is quite remarkable how some survivors grow up to be such wonderful rounded people. And quite understandable if they find themselves full of rage and continue to suffer for their whole lives.

Wilde was not a paedophile. As to the ages of the young men he had sex with, it seems that most would have been over our current age of consent, while some were younger, and at least a few were fourteen. In a recent UK poll, nearly a quarter of all fourteen-year-olds have had a sexual experience, and one in three fifteen-year-olds is sexually active. I cannot imagine that it was any different in Victorian times, especially considering that the lads that Wilde found attractive tended to be working class, and independent, either holding down a job or in search of one. Wilde flattered, cajoled, persuaded, dazzled, bribed and paid his many young “panthers” for sex. But he did this in an era when all same-sex activity was condemned and criminal, and the notion of there being an age of consent for it was nonsensical. The power Wilde exercised was financial, social, sexual and charismatic. He held no other power over them; he was not charged with their care or pretending to be something he was not. However, as he found out to his cost, the young men he had sex with could turn the tables and blackmail him, and exploit the power they had over him.

Modern laws relating to the age of sexual majority are designed, naturally and sensibly enough, to protect children. I have written in this column, three years ago now, how, when an Irish 14-year-old went looking for sex on gaydar in 2006, I was disgusted with the older men who agreed to have sex with him, and praised the men who turned up to meet him and then sent him packing, when they could see for themselves how young he was. Despite media coverage at the time, there was no paedophile ring, because there is a big difference between men who seek pleasure in the company of sexually active young men, and those who seek to despoil bodies and souls that are not ready for such an experience. It is a fine line, I know, because each person matures at a different age. But here’s a question: should a quarter of all fourteen year olds face a criminal conviction, because they have had sex?

I would be very interested to know how the young Irishman in the gaydar scandal, now aged 18, is faring, and what he makes of his experiences. Around the time of the scandal, a number of young men told me of their own sexual experiences when they were younger. Some were delighted with the sex they had when fourteen or fifteen; some were sad that it had happened so young. Most were philosophical. But not one of them ever expressed anything remotely like the suffering that has now become all-too-familiar of those who were abused by paedophiles. It’s a very different phenomenon.

If Wilde and Bosie were alive today, they would, perhaps, be civil partners. They loved each other that much. But they would also be cruising together and having lots of sex, together or separately, with lots of men. They would, no doubt, attract the same tabloid attention that George Michael and his lover do. I imagine that two crucial things would be different, however, between the Victorian era and ours. (Homo)sexuality has changed so much in just a century. They probably wouldn’t have to pay their lovers, and they would probably stick to the law, because they wouldn’t need to break it.

If a modern Wilde had sex with a fourteen-year-old now, I’d be disgusted, because we now have the rights that he never had, to live a life without shame or self-hatred or the threat of the ruination that, sadly, he had to endure over a hundred years ago.

We have no way of truly knowing how Wilde treated his lovers in intimate circumstances, but rather than make them feel cheap or dirty, he seems to have put them on pedestals, and showered them with gifts. There is no evidence that Wilde ever brutalised any of his lovers, or went against their will, or shamed them, or abused their trust. We can never truly know whether the motivation for youths blackmailing him came from their hurt feelings, or if it was an inevitable result of Wilde being rich and having sex with people who needed to survive and pay the rent. But Wilde worshipped them – or, to be perhaps more accurately, Wilde worshipped cock. Bosie was a rakish “top” whose hunt for passive youths certainly led him to test the ethical boundaries of any caring human being. I suspect I’d have disliked him intensely. But Wilde was sexually versatile (in modern terms, we take that to read: “bottom”) and therefore his sexual pleasure derived not from subjugation or possession of a youth’s body, but of inviting young, virile and testosterone-charged men to subjugate or possess him.

The emotional repercussions of a promiscuous lifestyle are still as complex as they were then, but at least now it is out of the reach of a cruel and unjust law.

Mentioning NAMBLA in any discussion about Wilde muddies the waters disgracefully. The North American Man/Boy Love Association is a society that props up the wicked delusion held by recidivist paedophiles that children, when they seek affection from an adult, are “asking for it”. In my eyes, these views are on a par with those expressed in the pro-anorexia websites, where young anorexics are told how to get as thin as possible. Disinformation rules, horrifying destruction is revered or, at best, ignored, with a malevolent self-serving sophistry that is sick and disturbing.

The comment about Andrew Madden reveals O’Leary’s true colours. Only an apologist for the Church would say that. But, happily, a Church is only as powerful as the numbers of people who belong to it. And such remarks have no power over someone who has left it, in a secular society. The (Roman) Emperor has no clothes. The old and clever shame-inducing mechanisms do not work any more. The Church can never satisfy Madden, not because of any flaw of his, as O’Leary tries to impute, but because the Church has lost all credibility with rational people.

As for “dizzy queens” having lots of “louche sex” – it amazes me why people froth at the mouth at this phenomenon. Is it envy? Sex is simply mutual pleasure. Why it is demonized as evil is simply beyond me.  It may be lots of other things – distracting, crazy-making, risky, chaotic, anarchic, but shared physical pleasure between two people who freely engage in it is a beautiful thing.

It is the following particular statement by O’Leary that astounded me the most, however. “In both cases (Ryan and Wilde) the good that the men did is overshadowed by the evil of which they are accused.”

Ryan’s job was pastoral. It was to care for his flock. His responsibility was, indeed, first and foremost, not to be “too busy” to take the trouble to “keep track of deviants in his clergy and handling complaints from people like Andrew Madden”. The fact that he didn’t see how protecting children is the most important responsibility he had, is a disgrace. I don’t believe in the concept of evil but I hate hypocrisy, and I detest the mindset that prioritizes the  reputation and authority of an institution over the lives of suffering children. What could be more villainous?

Wilde was an artist. A magnificent artist. He was true to himself and to his values and his passions. He devoted himself to beauty, and he paid the price for it, a thousand times more cruel than any bishop or archbishop or Pope will ever have to endure. And yet, their crimes are far greater. Could you imagine Wilde, after a passionate and mutually enjoyable tryst with a young buck, ever committing the obscenity of making his lover say the rosary in penance? Leave that to the master mindfuckers, the priests.

It is the heightened sensibility and sensitivity that the fallen Wilde displayed in his last masterpiece, De Profundis, that reveals his breathtaking humanity. It is his tragic flaw that makes him, in my understanding of the word, heroic.

If we, as Irish people, allow his all-too-human flaws to overshadow his unparalleled gift to the world, his art, because we still can’t get over our hangups about sex, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Further reading: The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde by Neil McKenna

There is a paradox about the creative process that I’m wrestling with now. Well, now more than ever. Mid-life, adolescence, it’s all the same really. What am I here for/What’s the point?  You know the score. Same as it ever was. It is that, essentially, there is a necessity to isolate, to go within, to be completely self-absorbed, in order for something to emerge that is authentically yours. It’s very narcissistic, it needs a capacity to navel-gaze, and a belief that the fluff you find there is something special, unique. The paradox is that, in order to be successful, you have to then embrace something very unpalatable to a narcissist: convention, tradition, rules, the mediocrity of other ordinary people with their mundane agendas, their commercial instincts, and their knowledge of what sells in the marketplace.

You have to communicate what you’ve come up with to others, according to “how things are done”. You have to step down from your grandiosity, your sense of specialness, and accept that you are just another wannabee artist/writer/singer/musician/poet/film-maker/actor and get in line: join the queue. Be judged, be evaluated. Risk hearing that you’re average, that you’re merely competent, that your precious idea/novel/song/project has been done before, is derivative, is boring. And you know what? It may well be. You have to expose yourself to that potentially annihilating experience to get steel in your spine, to learn about what other people value and are willing to pay for.

It’s a painful process for many, especially those with a good sense of revolt in their blood. I believe that a good proportion of drunks, especially in this country, are those who have given up on the second part of this process, can’t stomach it, and choose to play the role of misunderstood genius. They blame the system, their agent, their art college, the recording label, their parents, their ex-partner, anyone but themselves, comforting themselves with a self-indulgent bitter rant about their lot to anyone who will listen, before they fall off the bar stool.

In practically every art form, there are barriers to overcome that may appear to stifle originality, uniqueness, genius.  The traditional consensus on how things are done in a particular art form is a very powerful force to contend with, and, most times, is heavy with a dreadful inertia. You can’t call yourself an artist unless you’ve been to art school, so they say. So often, such establishments and conventions are anathema to the anarchic spirit, and are populated with serried ranks of self-imposed gatekeepers whose job it is to say “no”, whether they are literary agents, A&R executives, trade unionists, TV executives, media buyers, gallery owners, publishers, or teachers.

Tracey Emin spent a lot of time in her bed in that isolated, painful state of being. But she had the bright idea of presenting it in My Bed – and now it is totemic. But in order for her to know how good an idea it was, she had to know about all the other good ideas that had happened in art before her, if only to inform herself about what conventions she was choosing to break.

I may come up with all sorts of original tunes when I’m singing in the shower in the morning, and think I’m the bee’s knees, but I have no musical skills to communicate them to anyone else. Sadly, there’s nowhere you can ring to leave a melody where someone will get back to you to buy it. (Is there an app for that?)
A film-maker told me the other day: “never underestimate how disinterested commissioning editors are in your idea.” In other words – self-interest is the rule, no one is ever going to reach out and make it easy for you, no one is ever going to respond to your need and be your knight or dame on a white charger coming to your rescue – unless there is something in it for them. Once you enter the business of selling your creativity, you have to accept your self-obsession is not unique in the world. And you have to give up the “tortured artist starving in the garret” mode, and do what is necessary to make your creativity pay.

Belly-button fuzz, that accrual of intimate detritus, the personal gunk made up of the stuff you need to protect you from the elements, is not remotely interesting to others unless it’s worked on and spun into something meaningful, put in some enlightening context, given the right frame. Skill and craft are required. You have to win the business people over. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to play the game.

The world, sadly, does not owe you a living.

In the push for equality, as epitomized by the campaign for civil marriage for lesbian and gay people, I have been unequivocal in my support over the years. But lately, my flag-waving hand has begun to droop. Not because of the campaign itself, which is dynamic and effective. (See the brilliant YouTube ad).

And it’s not because of my frustration with its progress. The Green Party and GLEN failed to realise how unpalatable enshrining the principle of inequality into legislation is to LGBT people, no matter how progressive the Civil Partnership Bill is, no matter how much easier it might make the lives of so many people. (Fianna Fáil of course doesn’t care about principles). Since its publication, I believe the Greens have received that message loud and clear, especially after the 5,000-strong march against it in its current form. (If you are legislating to benefit a particular group, surely the opinions of that group matter?)

I am hopeful that the argument for putting the issue of gay civil marriage to a referendum is gaining ground (if, of course, it is constitutionally required, which is uncertain) given that I believe the debate would be good for society.

I am phlegmatic about whether or not it would be passed, though. Maybe, maybe not. California passed Prop. 8 last year, which outlawed gay marriage. However, one of the criticisms of the failed opposition  campaign there was that it didn’t focus on ordinary gay/lesbian people’s lives. That could never happen here. Ordinary people telling their stories on Liveline or on the Late Late is one of the main ways Irish social policy changes. Given a debate between a couple of pained, condescending Catholic moralists and a cheerful lesbian couple surrounded by their kids, I know who would win. Whatever about the shadow side to abortion and divorce, and there are valid arguments in opposition to both, the truth is, gay civil marriage harms no one. It is a symbol.

This is not to underestimate the power symbols have in Ireland. A referendum on gay civil marriage would flush out, for (hopefully) one last curtain call, those Catholic ideologues who dare to believe they know what’s best for other people. (A reminder of this corrupt mentality came on the radio other day, in a discussion commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Pope’s visit to Ireland. His Holiness, the panellist reminded us, was flanked by two “single fathers” – Bishop Éamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary).

We in Ireland are well used to holding referenda on fraught issues of sexual morality. Each time, they result in a greater understanding of the complex issues raised, and a greater familiarity with the people directly affected by the issue. However painful it may be, it is a positive process in my book, one which few other countries have undergone.

In a referendum on civil marriage, given the legal requirement for debates to be even-handed, lesbian and gay people would be all over the media, in a way that hasn’t happened yet in our society. Invisibility has always been the enemy of gay rights. Perhaps that’s why Fianna Fáil are so opposed to a referendum.
My weariness in waving the rainbow flag is more to do with my desire to fast-forward to the stage after equality is finally enshrined in law. A healthy community engages in self-criticism and reflection, and adapts and changes accordingly. But if that community is discriminated against, by the law in particular, there is a tendency to keep such criticisms or reservations private, in order to not let the side down, to avoid handing the bigots any ammunition. It leads to a censorship of sorts, a defensiveness, and accusations of betrayal of one’s community if one raises thorny issues.

Feminists rightly say that full equality for women will have come to pass, not only when the women in power are just as numerous as the men, but when they are just as boorish, slovenly, and ignorant. Full equality for LGBT people will have come to pass when we have completely moved on from a sense of prickly victimhood and have gained in confidence enough to talk openly about how difficult our lives can be, how fucked up we can be, how lonely and insecure we can be – just like everyone else. The political necessity to present only our good side to the world comes at a price.

The longer I live, the more I realise that gay and heterosexual men are far, far more alike than is commonly supposed. In fact, when it comes to sex and relationships, which supposedly are the significators of gay identity, I find that lesbians and gay men vastly differ in their approach and behaviour. Indeed, they are as different from each other as… the sexes.

One only has to survey an online chatroom for cruising guys. It is unimaginable that women would ever talk to each other in a similar way, in such vast numbers. Many women, indeed, would be shocked at the number of men online who freely admit they are married or partnered with women, who are looking for “no strings” sex with other guys. It doesn’t make them gay – it’s simply that they are men, trying to get as much sex as they can, without emotional attachment. It’s what a hell of a lot of men do. But in Ireland, it is hardly ever talked about. Irish men, generalizing hugely, lack the emotional literacy to discuss these matters. And, despite our supposed sensitivity, this counts for gay men too. And when we don’t talk about problems, they don’t go away, they tend to get worse.

Too often, in this country, I hear of a young gay male couple breaking up over a night of indiscretion, and it breaks my heart. (Simple reason: I know far, far too many single gay men in their forties). It’s as if the values of traditional heterosexual marriage have been adopted unthinkingly to apply to their relationship. No account has been made for the fact that they are male, that gay male culture is sexualised and commodified, and that sex is effortlessly accessible. They can, if they so choose, let go “mammy’s morals” and come up with their own rules, their own standards, their own mechanism for keeping trust and love alive, to make their relationship work. But for that to become commonplace, there has to be a level of mature discourse in our community about the drawbacks of being men who love men, an acceptance of the difficult  realities, and not stay attached to a frequently unsuitable and often ultimately self-defeating ideal.

If and when marriage between men becomes an ordinary reality, then, and perhaps only then, will it become obvious how much work we have to do to make them work. I’m just weary waiting for “permission” from the government, before the conversation begins. We could start talking now, lads.

It’s tough to articulate it, because although it may be a common experience, it is also largely unconscious. And trying to dig up what’s buried in your psyche is an unpleasant business, it’s like hunting for a corpse by following your nose. Something stinks, it’s unnerving, but it’s not obvious. It’s a low-grade anxiety that you catch a whiff of every now and again.

I once was woken up every other night at 3.01am, and I couldn’t figure out why. I am blessed with the ability to sleep usually, but for a few weeks the experience dominated my life, because sleep ceased to be guaranteed. But it was intermittent, so after one night’s full sleep I’d forget about it, only to find myself a couple of nights later being dragged into consciousness to stare at the clock saying 3:01. I tried to figure out what was the cause, but in the middle of the night my head isn’t the clearest. Was it the central heating kicking in on a timer? A neighbour leaving for work slamming the door? Couldn’t figure it out. Gradually, the knowledge that I was not heading for a guaranteed full night’s sleep took its toll. I couldn’t drift off, I couldn’t relax. I became sort of dishevelled inside, and tetchy, and out of sorts. Eventually I figured it out. I set my alarm for 2.55am, and listened. Sure enough, at 3.00, a very low beeping came from somewhere in my room. It was a travel alarm in my suitcase at the bottom of my wardrobe, set at that time to wake me to catch a plane home from the last time I had been away.

It’s as vague as that, as intermittent, the disquiet I feel about the internet. Not the practical stuff, the banking or the plane tickets or the news. And research and entertainment is fun too, the youtubes and wikipedia and the googling. All that is wonderful, even though there is so much bile and venom and chaff to sift through.

It’s about my interaction with others, through social networking, instant messaging, online chat, and dating sites.

On face value, such interactions add to my life. I share a joke or a video online with my friends, it’s instant and fun. I go rooting around the 1911 census online and share my discoveries with others, who then tell me the stories behind their ancestors and what they’ve discovered. I ask in my status line if anyone wants to go see a movie or go to a show, and I get responses. I hear about parties or festivals and exhibitions online, and I go to them, and know who else is going. I keep up to date with the news from my cousins, spread all over the world. Friends who are travelling on the other side of the planet might as well be next door, I can see how they are getting on every day, and see their photographs almost as soon as they are taken. On a sadder note, I’ve learned about people’s deaths online, and passed on the news to people who hadn’t heard.

So far, so good. It’s all so plausibly social.

When it comes to dating sites, I’ve given up on them, however. And my problem with them is a concentrated version of the flaw in online social networking with friends.
It is this: what did we do before the internet? What was so wrong with it? What have we lost in the transition? Because socializing and keeping in touch used to be part of everyday activities that served us perfectly well for eons.

I’m not a Luddite. But with every advance in human civilization, there is a drawback. And  we only really notice what we’ve been deprived of when it begins to hurt – like not getting a particular vitamin in a new diet that tastes amazing. Over time, something begins to go wrong with your health, it’s vague and unsettling and hard to pinpoint.

Keeping in touch with people used to be done in company. Whether it was in a pub or chatting with neighbours or simply chatting on the phone, the information we swapped was part of a matrix of interactions that only happens when you are actually talking to people. Our tolerance levels of other people’s personalities and idiosyncrasies had to be quite high, but we never noticed it.

You’d never walk into your local and have only one request on your mind, that you would announce as you came into the pub. “Who wants to see the Tarantino with me tonight at 7.30?” If you think of it literally happening, it seems quite absurd. Would you turn on your heels if no one wanted to go with you? If you found someone who did want to go, would you leave together right there and then to see it? No, you wouldn’t. The very idea would be absurd. You would be meeting your friends to spend time with them. Chatting. About the weather, about NAMA, about the X-factor,  their latest break up or holidays or anything else. The primary purpose is, of course, truly communal: taking people as you find them, and seeing what happens. You’ve no agenda, but you’re meeting a basic human need, to hang out. And if a friend is being a bit of a bore, or a bit down, you still pass the time with them. They’ll be in better form next time. It’s a basic kindness, a basic generosity of spirit. You give of yourself your actual presence, and you get the same in return. What comes out of a night such as that might be a pleasant surprise. You might meet a new friend of a friend that you like – you might even want to ask them out. It happens organically. Naturally.

Of course I still have nights like that. I’m not a complete geek. But I know if I didn’t have the internet, I’d be out socializing much more. And I think I’d be far more content with myself and my life.

The internet seems social, as I say, but it’s actually a way of controlling your life and your interactions to such a degree that ordinary “passing the time” socializing seems too much like hard work. When it comes to dating, it gets quite grotesque. Relationships are built not on a negotiated checklist of sexual preferences, but quite simply on a sensation of ease that you stumble upon, when you meet someone and there’s a mutual attraction. If it feels easy, and the body language is good, and you can have a laugh together, you will want to spend more time discovering the person, and, hopefully, vice versa. It’s a slow, tentative, gentle process, because it has to be. Not for everyone, I grant you, but for me. For all the fact that I used to be a webmaster and still design blogs for my friends, the internet is just plain wrong for me when it comes to dating. I need time, plenty of time, to get to know someone. And the internet just doesn’t offer that – it’s all about the instant moment, scratching an itch.

The internet allows us to control our interactions in a way that is impossible in the “real” world. We set the agenda, and it is based on our want, our need, our taste, our hunger. There is one thing that is guaranteed to magnify our desire, our sense of lack, our need for connection, and that is when we focus on it, to try to satiate it. Desire is an ourobouros – a snake that eats itself.

Online, we ignore those who don’t immediately satiate that need, respond to our joke, reply to our message on a dating site, or like our facebook status update. We can spend an evening interacting like that and by the end of it we’re still on our own. We’ve been mentally stimulated, but emotionally we’ve been in a vacuum. It’s a curious, subtle deprivation. And the only symptom of it is an unease, a restlessness, an anxiety. A tiny alarming sound in the middle of the night.

Here’s one written for Hot Press on 21st August 2009, just after Caster Semenya won her gold medal, and before any official “results” on her sex-testing. And before I attended the Electric Picnic Leviathan debate on gay marriage, with Senator Ronan Mullen and others. More than once, he said that “God doesn’t make hermaphrodites”. I had to correct him.

Central to the Catholic ethos is a notion of the “complementarity” of male-female relationships, and this notion of public policy being conservative for the “greater good”. And yet the current civil partnership bill, by ignoring children of same-sex couples, does exactly what Catholic teaching has always done – sacrificed the well-being and family security of children at the altar of dogma. Catholic teaching punishes children. And by Mullen saying that “God doesn’t make hermaphrodites” I was left aghast. On average, there would have been thirty people at Electric Picnic who would have been incensed had they been in earshot of his pontificating. Not to mention hurt. But Mullen immunizes himself against how his words hurt people’s feelings by telling himself and others he believes they make for a better society.  If Catholicism could point to one example of its teaching on sexual morality that had been proved correct or for the greater good I’d like to know about it.

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As we go to press, the “results” of the “sex test” for 800m gold-medal winner Caster Semenya have not been released. However it turns out, the way the organizers of the world athletics championships in Berlin have treated her is nothing short of shameful, by making the process a publicly humiliating one, instead of employing a modicum of discretion and tact. And the way that South Africans have rallied around her in support is a matter of pride for her and her country.

As Germaine Greer pointed out in the Guardian recently, in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, genetic testing was required  for all female athletes. After more than 6,000 tests, no one was found to be a man masquerading as a woman, but quite a few women discovered they had developmental sexual disorders that they weren’t aware of before. It succeeded only in embarrassing a lot of people, and was discontinued.

Evidently, the authorities have decided to bring back testing (this time involving a whole panel of “experts”) because of Caster’s unique winning physicality. The South Africans naturally put it down to envy. (However, the envy may be a manifestation of another kind of suspicion, to wit the none-too-subtle comments in the press about her “recent dramatic improvement in performance”, which is usually code for “we think someone’s been doping on the sly”.)

Notwithstanding that particular thorny issue, she is a striking woman, and indeed with her low voice and masculine physique, she does make one wonder about how the binary construct of male and female in our culture fails to describe adequately the variations that occur naturally in our species. Her family, from an impoverished village in Limpopo province, affirms that she was born a girl, and also that she was a classic tomboy, loving soccer and showing no interest in girly things. In other words, her story is not of a young man deciding to cheat and enter the girls’ races so he could win; her narrative is one that many women the world over can identify with, and certainly, I would imagine, a large proportion of women who are sporty. While many tomboys grow up into lesbian or bisexual women, it is course not reliable to infer sexual orientation by the degree to which one displays “masculine” or “feminine” attributes. That is, to fall into the binary trap, to see everything as one thing or the other. Human beings have always been somewhere in the middle. Aren’t you?

Neither, it seems, is it reliable to infer gender by appearance alone. Statistics are easy to manipulate, but it is fair to say that somewhere between one in a thousand and one in a hundred people are born with a certain ambiguity in their gender. (This figure of course is multiplied many times if one includes those that aren’t 100% heterosexual). This may manifest in something as obvious as being born with genitals that are a mixture of both male and female, or something less clear cut like a very large clitoris or a small penis, or it may only manifest in adolescence, when things don’t turn out the way they are “supposed to”. The variations from the binary norm can manifest in our genes, in our hormones, and/or in our genitals.

Intersexuality is separate to the experience that is classified “gender dysphoria”, in which a person in adulthood comes to the realisation that they were born into the wrong sex, in the wrong body.  And indeed this is also separate from the experience of growing up gay or lesbian, in which one’s chosen love-object is not the cultural norm. In many societies, being a gay man is synonymous with being effeminate, such as the ladyboys in South-East Asia.

Any of these natural variations can lead to a deep questioning about gender, about sex roles, about what is expected of us as a man, as a woman, as a human being. For many of us it is a journey of self-discovery that is like trying to work out a puzzle, to which there is no solution. Because the problem is society’s, not the individual’s.

In wealthy families, or families with good public health systems, the parents of children born with ambiguous genitalia are often offered early surgery to “correct” the “abnormality”. This is why we don’t hear so much about intersex adults, certainly in Ireland or the UK – the “correction” is made early on in life, and as long as adolescence proceeds without a problem (I mean without more than the usual problems), then the natural variance in body shape remains a private matter. Of course, the awful possibility exists for parents that they choose the “wrong” sex for their child, ie one that the child eventually decides is wrong for them. However, in Caster’s case, her parents had no such recourse. Presumably, therefore, her body as a little girl raised no suspicions or fears.

One in a thousand Irish people works out at around 6,000 people on this island. It is of course impossible to know how many of them as adults were informed about their surgery in infancy, if they had it; I would guess that, so embarrassed are we about sexual difference, many Irish parents have chosen to keep such matters as secret as possible. Parents have an understandable wish to protect their children from feeling like outsiders; but, sadly, the more they do so, the less likely that things will change for future generations.

The limits of a circle define it – by which I mean those who test the boundaries of human experience create more of a sense of security for those who find themselves comfortably in the middle. But we tend to demonize and scapegoat those on the edge, as opposed to show them gratitude or respect for the difficult path on which they find themselves. Because we fear difference, it unsettles us. And those who are most fearful, most suspicious, most hostile, tend to be the ones who have their own secret fear of letting their differences be known.

I could look on the bright side, and list the number of sweet and kind people I love, declaring love is not reserved for couples; or I could go dark and twisted, and find clever ways of blaming everyone else, while secretly thinking it’s my fault. I could go on about loneliness blah blah the exclusivity of couples blah blah the search for Mr Right blah blah. Men’s incompetence in relationships, our poor emotional literacy, how we have to be enticed into being intimate and vulnerable, how we won’t be the ones to do it first, because we feel weak when we do, unmanly, not how we are supposed to be. How most men resist losing control over their own lives (which is one way of describing entering into a loving relationship) and are incredibly protective of their sense of freedom and independence, holding out as long as they can, unless it’s advantageous to them. How, despite ourselves, when men look to each other for sexual romantic relationships, the sweetest of gentlefolk, the sweet-hearted carers, the ones our female friends say are so perfect for us, aren’t lover material. If we wanted effeminacy, we’d have chosen women, say the worst offenders. Cold men are hot. Damn Eros.

Ach, I’ve been there, wrote the book, printed the T-shirt. I neither want to apologise for being single, nor explain it, justify it or defend it any more. It is what it is, I am living the life I have and it’s fine, thanks very much.

See, the defensiveness has crept in already. Even if, in the recent Men Today poll for the Irish Times, a full third of men declare themselves to be single. That’s a heck of a minority. And, of course, it follows that there’s a similar proportion of women who are single, too. It’s a large enough proportion of human beans. We shouldn’t be defensive, should we?

Do I fly the flag for “Single Pride”? Do I challenge the heteronormative orthodoxy and agitate for the dissolution of the nuclear family unit in order to liberate the individual from suffocating conformity and repression? Do I go all queer-anarcho-syndicalist and agitate for the destruction of the institution of marriage? Do I picket churches yelling “down with that sort of thing” as the confetti is being thrown on couples getting into their white limos? How about spreading hippy-dippy-free-love from the sixties, and going for polyamory? Or do I go the hedonistic route and argue for the return of the ideologically-driven promiscuous gay lifestyle of the seventies, when paradise moved to earth for a few years, promising lots of cake and eating it too, until cake made us sick?

Do I heck.

Do I start waxing on about the many kinds of love, how we need to expand our consciousness and stop thinking we’re missing something because we don’t have a wife or husband? Do I talk about the multi-faceted aspect of love, how arranged marriages work very well, how one can love a perfect stranger, how one can love our friends deeply, how there is love in a child’s giggle, a rabbit’s fluffy tail, a kitten…

Oh god. I mentioned kittens.

Do I take the spiritual route? The one that says that carnal love is impure, that we are never truly alone, that the godhead/Jahweh/Higher Power/Allah/Aphrodite/Elvis is always with us, guiding us, and as long as we live a good life and devote ourselves to Him/Her/Them, Brides of Christ, we can find contentment like no other. There are a lot of people in Ireland, and across the world, who live that sort of life, or aspire to it. It’s not for me. In some ways, if I wasn’t queer, I might have ended up a priest. But then, if I wasn’t queer, I mightn’t have any spiritual inclinations whatsoever. Queer as both cause and effect of spirituality.

Bless me, father.

Do I take the psychoanalytic route? Fall in love with my analyst, use him like romantic training wheels on a bike? And after I’ve polished all my rough edges, practised being mean and angry and coy and seductive, do I thank him and promptly go out and find a real person to love? Life’s too short to waste time paying someone to love. Especially when they don’t love you back.

A friend of mine told me, when she was single, that she believed it was “none of her business” when she’d find someone to be in her life. It was a helpful thing to say – because she, rightly, placed the mechanism of fate outside her control, where it belongs. There are too many people out there who believe it’s their fault that they are single – that they aren’t good-looking enough, or therapized enough, or masculine/feminine enough. They’re too fat, too thin. Too tall, too short. They’re too needy/depressive/controlling/clingy – as if by erasing these traits then the right person would then come along and sweep them off their feet, as if on cue. There is no right to relationship, love does not come to everyone.

If only.

Love is luck. But, like luck, one can make one’s own.

Romance and rage are but two sides of the same coin. The romantic love of fantasy is that someone will be there for them and match all their needs. It’s impossible, and rage that our needs aren’t fully met inevitably follows. Romantic obsession is not a pretty sight.

But real love is a decision, a choice to be loving is one that we can make at any time. If you’re lucky, and some of us are, we can get over the disappointment of not having a partner and just get on with things. And even smile as couples gaze into each other’s eyes all around them.

Happy Valentine’s. You lucky, lucky bastards.

But the lucky sod happens to get a bone marrow transplant from someone with a rare resistance to the HIV virus, that occurs in about one in a thousand Europeans. Nearly two years later, he’s as fit as a fiddle and is totally clear of both HIV and leukemia. Talk about a last-minute reprieve from Death Row.

It’s a true story. And, I realise it may sound strange, but it makes me wonder about prayer. About miracles, and that sort of stuff. Around Christmas, I try to remind myself that the tacky extravaganza is not only about shopping and eating and drinking. It has to be about something else, something that isn’t about gratification. Doesn’t it?

You see, I believe that the only word I have for what I’ve been doing in response to AIDS since it first terrified me in the early eighties is praying. Never consciously directed at a Higher Power or a God or Jesus or Allah or anyone else, it’s been a sort of focussed period of concentration, almost an internalized furrowing of my brow, for anything from a few moments to a few hours, in which I am actively willing that the world provides a cure for the bloody disease. The world? Human beings. Scientists. The Fates. The Fureys. Anyone will do.

I was reminded of the sad toll the disease has taken on the lives of so many Irish people when I attended a lecture by Niall Sweeney, the writer and graphic designer and general fount of creativity, (or should that be font of creativity?) on the social and visual history of the annual Alternative Miss Ireland contest, the beauty pageant that is open to men, women, and animals. The team of dedicated professional volunteers who have worked so hard over the years to raise funds to defeat the disease and support those living with it, have a heartwarming story to tell. But the design is eye-watering – it’s a visual feast, grotesque and stylish, absurd and sublime, crazy and serene. Most of all, what is evident in the images and videos in the archive is an extraordinary celebratory sense of humour.

But there is a poignancy to it, as so many of the original team have died of the disease since the competition started. It is the hurt of that mournful, terrifying period in the eighties and early nineties that I was reminded of, seeing those fabulous faces and their outrageous frocks.

All that praying, all that willing, the mental forcing, the bending of one’s will to make something happen over the years. The sadness, the grief, the loss, the fear of those close to me. The missing faces on the scene, the wistful memories of fearless lovemaking. The torture of the regular HIV test that never seems to be anything less than an existential trial, a weighing up of pleasure’s costs, the opening of the door to see if Death is waiting outside this time.
All this, for one little virus. I was speaking to a friend last night who, like a few others, wonder about the strict connection between the virus and the deadly disease. I used to think like him – fear drove me into denial, and had me clutching at straws, the discrepancies in the original discovery of the virus, the squabbling laboratories, the cases of those who didn’t die who “should have”. The impact of believing you’re about to die, and how it speeds one towards death, a placebo effect in reverse. The synchronicity of those dying first being those who (generally) used a lot of drugs and had a lot of sex. All pointing to it being a lifestyle effect, a state of mental or spiritual dis-ease.

But it’s not either/or. It is both, for some people. But, for most people, it’s just a virus that strips away one’s defences. It’s as simple as that.

And now we learn that it can go away. Admittedly it’s kind of impossible to imagine how those same conditions could be repeated for everyone with the virus – every thousandth European with the genetic anomaly would have to be found first, needles in a haystack, then blood-typed and marrow-typed. How many times could a person have their bones drilled open and their marrow sucked dry to save a life? I pity the poor donor, who saved this man’s life. He’s got an unenviable choice.

Anyway. In the meantime, all we can do is hope that this is the first of many such breakthroughs. And pray.

When things seem at their darkest, they often turn out unexpectedly beautiful. Fact. Have a peaceful, loving, healthy Christmas.

Homosexuality in Irish History: Terrible Queer Creatures by Brian Lacey is that rare beast: an instantly indispensable tome. A simply written, thorough and thoughtful book, it is the salve to the wound that, I believe, every gay person experiences at some stage of their lives, especially when coming out. It happens when it first dawns on us that a part of our identity, our sexuality, marks us out as cuckoos in the nest. For the vast majority of us, having grown up in heterosexual households, when we realise we are different to our family, in one crucial aspect, our natural urge is to research who else is like us, and who else has been like us in the past. Before this book, in Ireland, that search was always bitty, frustrating, and tantalising. From now on, every Irish gay teenager will be able to find in this volume something that satisfies that need, and more. Lacy has not outed anyone, everyone named in his book has been in the public domain before. He has simply, but painstakingly, put it all together, and when he is unsure, or there is conflicting evidence about someone’s sexuality, he says so. As in much of the rest of history, women’s lives over the centuries have not been recorded for posterity, and so Irish lesbians of old are hard to track down and name; in the main because so much of queer history is sourced in sexual, and often criminal scandals, and lesbians, in the main, escaped such media and legal attention.

We learn that early Celts were reportedly “much keener on their own sex”. From early Brehon Law, we learn that one category of woman entitled to divorce her husband was “A woman who is cheated of bed-rites so that her husband prefers to lie with the servant boys when it is not necessary for him to do so.” It’s a delightfully non-judgmental and tactfully phrased law, and I love the fact that, logically, a man could defend himself in such proceedings by claiming that it was absolutely necessary for him to lie with his servant boy. Necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention.

The role of bedfellow to the King was much prized in ancient Ireland, many poets considered it to be one of their chief prerogatives, and the life and works of a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, Ó hEoghusa, is explored, in particular the practice (or conceit) of a poet playing the role of “wife or lover” to his chieftain. The lives of many homosexual United Kingdom kings are discussed, including our very own William of Orange.

St Patrick himself, we learn, on his famous first trip to Ireland, fended off the salacious advances from the sailors, and refused to “suck their nipples on account of the fear of God”. It is of course Christianity that brought condemnation of homosexuality to Ireland, in the Irish Penitentials, introducing severe punishments for same-sex activity. The 1634 law that criminalized buggery in Ireland claimed, as its first victim, one of its architects, the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, who had been notoriously severe on sexual offenders throughout his life. He was hanged for his trouble (and for his pleasure). In 1822 another Irish cleric, the Bishop of Clogher, was caught with his pants down – literally – in the manly embrace of a soldier, in the back of a London pub. (The pub later charged tourists to visit the backroom. Some things never change.)

Homosexuality towards the end of the last millennium in Ireland was seen as an imported English vice, and an 1881 scandal saw a savage witch-hunt against “a vile gang” in Dublin, “leagued together for the pursuit of unnatural depravity and vice”. The gay scene was alive and well, back then, it seems, as portrayed in a scurrilous publication of the time, subtitled “the recollections of a Mary Anne”. Missing, however, is reference to the Irish Catholic labourers’ “bachelor culture” of London, as documented in Houlbrook’s “Queer London”.

A motley crew is gathered here: various Irish policemen in the NYPD, the US Confederate Army General Cleburne. John Cardinal Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Somerville and Ross, Eva Gore-Booth, George Moore, Hugh Lane, Francis Joseph Bigger, Padraig Pearse, MacLiammóir and Edwards, Danny La Rue, Francis Bacon, Brendan Behan, Joni Crone, David Norris. The roll call goes on and on. Naturally, Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement get chapters of their own. The history ends with decriminalization in 1993.

Every library in Ireland should stock this, with great big arrows pointing to it, to direct all curious adolescent cuckoos, seeking information and context, to this superlative resource.

Our Lives, Out Loud, by Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, is no doubt going to open Volume II of a history of Irish homosexuality, a hundred years from now. It’s an extraordinary book: a deeply personal autobiography by two lovers, a fiercely intelligent political  manifesto for community education and social change, a breathtaking challenge to the Catholic Church, and a meditation on love and relatedness.

Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan

As one might expect from two radical theologians and educators, accused by some feminists of giving religion “a good name”, they articulate a vision of the world that is infused with spirit, yet lacking in dogma or preachiness. Despite their respect for each other’s “otherness” and their avowed dedication to respect each other’s differences, it is quite remarkable that the voice they express in this book is so much in harmony, and so believable. One gets a sense of their different personalities, but this single male outsider knows just how different human beings can be, and what is endearing about this book is that they freely admit that they have been lucky to have found each other, to have knitted together so well, and marvel at the serendipity that has blessed their lives. One notable omission, however, is mention of sex itself: not that I would demand that these two dignified doctors share their bedtime secrets with us, but it is curious to me that the union of two minds, hearts and spirits can be so joyously celebrated, but that between two bodies is left to the imagination. This is Ireland, after all. Still.

In 1982, they made a commitment of ‘life-partnership’ to each other. They knew it was forbidden territory, but that gave them a sense of great delight. They were Greenham Common women. They brought feminist theology to Ireland, to the apoplexy of many in the Church, which they eventually left. Katherine taught liberation theology in Trinity College, bringing students out to hostels for victims of domestic violence, to the district courts. “Why are things the way they are?” was her constant refrain. They visited a “family shelter” for homeless people, where people opened up their homes to those who were in need of one. In 1985, they found and founded one themselves. This was grassroots social activism at its best, educating women to empower themselves, they are pioneers of women’s community education in Ireland, with the emphasis of encouraging shifts away from guilt or victimhood. Since then they have built An Cosán, in Jobstown, the innovative community educational centre, now staffed by 35 people.

At times, in my envy, I might fall into the trap of thinking them smug: “The ‘most likely place’ for Katherine ‘to experience sacred essence is in her partnership with Ann Louise.’” But they have worked so hard for what they believe in, and touched the lives of so many people in Jobstown and West Tallaght, not to mention their students, that one can only salute them for not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.

Astonishing intellectual and emotional maturity is evident from this book. These women have thought through their lives and love for each other in a profound way. They forged their relationship, and their rich world-view, in the heady America of feminism, liberation theology, and gay liberation. Naturally, this radicalism was not welcome in certain circles back in Ireland: Ann Louise’s appointment as head of St Patrick’s Religious Department was vetoed by three archbishops in a row. Katherine’s many years in Trinity as a part-time but energetically creative tutor were not rewarded with a full-time position.

Katherine’s coming out letter to her parents, and the correspondence following it, is one of the most extraordinary series of letters to read; a model of deep, reflective thought and love between generations.

The starkness of the financial hardship they would face, were one of them to die living in Ireland, their marriage unrecognized, is graphically described, and the decision they made to challenge the tax laws is explained. The risk they take in doing so is extraordinary, however, on so many levels. They know that they have no option but to open their lives up to public scrutiny. But Ann Louise risks losing her job, by coming out like this, in the courts and in this book.

They are missionaries of a feminist spirituality, advocating that spiritual growth can rightfully happen outside the confines of religion. They quote David Hume: “a powerful imagination is required to turn  ideas into living impression”. In this book, as in their lives, they demonstrate this imagination in action, it is the epitome of praxis.

Buy it. Read it. Be inspired.

Only two out of three Irish men say they agree with monogamous relationships.  But 7% have never had sex at all, and the vast majority of men have only had up to three sexual partners in their lives. Although half of men welcome the liberalization of attitudes towards sex as a good thing, for both men and women, six out of ten believe that young men are under too much pressure to have sex when they are young. The same proportion say that how others perceive them matters: a staggering 80% of them identify personal care (skin/hair) as being of importance to them, and of those, half of them say that fashion is “very” important to them in their everyday lives. To repeat: Four out of ten Irish men -  Fashion very important. I know. I don’t believe it myself.

8% of those under 35 admit to having had sex with other men, and again this must be seen as a conservative figure, although men are split 37% – 38% against gay marriage. (This compares starkly, and unfavourably, to the Lansdowne poll in March which indicates 58% of Irish people are in favour of gay marriage. I wasn’t aware the sexes had such different attitudes; or, perhaps, as in all opinion polls, the wording and context of those questions are too different to be comparable.)

Contrary to the positive gloss put on by the manager of the polling company, Ian McShane, who claimed that the figures supported the view that “mens’ wives/girlfriends/partners rank as being extremely important to them in their lives in general,” I see a different story. Of 22 life aspects rated, a man’s wife or partner came only fourth on the list of importance, after financial independence (the same as women in last year’s poll), being able to look after oneself (a no-brainer) and – get this – leisure time. You read it here, folks. Guys really do prioritise football, and pints with their mates, over their wives/girlfriends.

Almost 50% of all men believe that single men have a better life (rising to 69% of younger men), which supports my view that, in general, many men need to be persuaded/cajoled/invited/pressured/blackmailed into entering relationships; it isn’t necessarily the priority for men that women think it is. Although, of course, life takes its toll: by the time we get past 40, most of us concede that being single isn’t better. The majority of men will turn to their spouse or partner for comfort “when the chips are down”, with only one in eight turning to the Catholic church for solace.

But to put it in context, not to mention for the entertainment, John Waters’ column in the  Times is good value. Especially when it comes to understanding the dyspepsia of the modern Irish male, that particularly sour flavour of opinion that affects a large swathe of Irish journalism. Rather than viewing this poll of Irish male attitudes as a spontaneous snapshot of opinion, he says, it may be “more like a videotaped statement of a hostage with a knife to his Adam’s apple.” Ooer. Victim, much! “There is no such entity as ‘men’” he rants, at least “not in the sense that there is nowadays an entity called ‘women’ or perhaps ‘wimmin’. Women are the only gender. Men do not campaign for themselves, nor take the side of other men.”

In the sense that awareness of men’s needs and issues are not generally addressed in the media,
and acknowledging that “gender studies” courses in universities do tend to mean “women’s studies”, I take his point. But the politicization of women, over the past few decades in particular, and the changes they have made to society as a result, were necessary, because men were blind to the (mostly unconscious) collusion between them that excluded and disempowered women. The “personal is political” approach to societal change, that feminists pioneered and worked hard for, has brought about changes that men now approve of – for example, most men disagree with the statement that the man should be the main breadwinner in a household.

Feminists may be disappointed by the finding that most men believe that a woman should accept that her children are more important than her career; and yet compare that with last year’s poll: 53% of women believe it is better for children if their mother is a full-time home-maker. Men and women are not that far apart in their opinions.

Feminism is not the problem that Waters would have us believe, it brought about the beginning of social change that is welcomed by all men and women. Now that attention is being paid to men, in this poll, it is good to see that we are strongly in favour (74%) of workplace legislation to allow us to play more of a role in raising children, and 85% of men believe that single fathers should have exactly the same rights as single mothers. As surprising as that may be, given the lack of media attention to these opinions heretofore, men just have to follow the feminists and organize if they want to effect political change, and not complain bitterly about hard-done-by we are by wimmin.

Brothers, unite!