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On February 10 at GCN Towers, we quietly celebrated the 30th anniversary of the publication of our very first issue. We’re going to be loudly celebrating all things GCN30 with you over the coming year, starting with a special bumper issue next month, but in the meantime we wanted to reflect on words written by our co-founder Tonie Walsh (pictured) in the 100th issue of GCN (published in 1997).

“We wanted it to be irreverent and earnest at the same time and it had to look like a newspaper,” he wrote of the early discussions with co-founder Catherine Glendon about the publication. (Glendon was Secretary of GCN’s publishers the National Gay Federation [NGF] at the time and tragically passed away just before the first issue hit the streets.)

Tonie’s original suggestion of calling the new publication Fag Rag was shot down by the members of NGF for being too frivolous. “In agreeing on the title [GCN], we were all keen to validate some sense of community,” he wrote.

“Looking back, Catherine and I originally conceived GCN as an information resource that would reflect the growing confidence and diversity of the Irish queer communities. Although the human and economic resources weren’t always to hand, it never dulled our huge desire to document and celebrate our lives, our histories – made all the more urgent by the devastation of AIDS and the almost complete absence of recognition in the mainstream of our society.”

30 years on Ireland is a different place to the place where GCN was launched, we have same-sex marriage legislation, gender recognition legislation and protection against discrimination, but yet in this, the 339th issue of GCN, we’re still talking about increasing numbers of HIV infections, and a dearth of adequate sexual health services. We’re talking about LGBTs rallying behind the campaign repeal to the 8th amendment. We’re still talking about activism and campaigning for a better Ireland for LGBT+ people, and we’re still supporting all the organisations who do so.

As Tonie wrote in Issue 100: “There is no room for complacency when greatness beckons. This paper, the longest continuous queer periodical in Ireland, is uniquely placed to be the defining voice of our generation and in time an invaluable historical document.

“Our future is very definitely now. Here’s to new beginnings…”