Growing up in Northern Ireland for the last 30 year has had problems for everybody. Depending on which side of the divide that unfortunately exists has for some limited their experiences of normallity and all attention seems to be focused on one issue. The colour of you loyalty. ¹

Being gay in Northern Ireland almost excludes you from participating in either side, as the churches being so strong almost exile you so neither side claims to own you, and both sides mock and ridicule you. If you were in anyway strange or different at school you were a 'ponse' or 'gay', cause you were in Northern Ireland and 'nobody was gay' so it was deemed a safe insult. However the existance of a gay community and a larger ex-pat community in Dublin and London means that something that was invisible did exist and somehow never had a palce on the social or political agenda.

The 'religious' of Northern Ireland hate anything different be that the other side or a different sexual orientation. The gay populous in Northern Ireland is ostricised. In the Repulic homosexuality only became legal in 1983, and in a place where an abortion clinic still has a round the clock picket from religious fundamnetalists, what chance can a gay person have to be proud of who they are. The sad thing is that many gay people in Northern ireland find it impossible to live with family and colleagues looking down and quoting scripture at them all the time and have to find a way to be themselves elsewhere.

Politics

The problem arises in Northern Ireland that most of the politicians have to align themselves with one of the main religious groupings. Unfortunatley as this is either fundamentalist Protestant or Roman Catholic, resulting in the whole gay agenda being seen as a turn off to what the politicians see as being their electorate. This unfortunately means that most politicians from Northern Ireland vote against reforms for homosexuals in the house of Commons and place gay rights low on their political agenda².

Exiled

Because of these various difficulties many gay people from Northern Ireland feel they have to flee to be free. Escaping to the large cites with a large lesbigay populous or just to a city where they can escape. Because the small town mentality of most of Britain, as regards the small number of lesbigay people in their towns is prevalent everywhere throughout Northern Ireland, because the sence of commuity still exists through the religious ³ ties that bind.

Heightened bigotry

Because there is already a hatred for anything that is not you, the level of bigotry in Northern Ireland seem to be somewaht higher than in the rest of the UK. In mainland UK most people at least know someone who is opening gay. In Northern Ireland the closet is a lot bigger because a large number of gay people are not willing to totally upset family who are set in their religious idealogies, which still hold considerable sway. So in Northern Ireland everyone is somehow considered to be straight, and the effects are quite astronomical, the number of times you have to sit there through homophobic jokes without even so much as 'I hope noone is offended' is far greater, also the amount of speculation as a result is greater. Is it any wonder that more people stay in the closet, escape or commit suicide then ever come out fully in Northern Ireland.