No: 16 Cork Leads The Way

The Cork City LGBT Awareness Week

In 2002 the Cork City Development Board Strategy Imagine our Future was published. There was one sentence referring to the LGBT community in the strategy, Objective 86: “The gay, lesbian, bisexual communities (transgender was added later as our understanding grew) will be enabled to fully participate in the social, cultural and economic life of the city,” and an Inter-Agency Group was set up to translate that policy objective into practice.

Securing the widest possible support from public and statutory agencies, from the community and local development as well as buy-in from LGBT+ organisations, was the first task of the Inter-Agency Group. Cork City Council and the HSE were the first public agencies to commit both human and financial resources to the Inter-Agency Group. Now all of the public agencies in the city have lent their support to the Inter-Agency group, including An Garda Siochána, Cork Education & Training Board, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Tusla and Cork City Libraries.

Since 2011 the Inter-Agency Group has organised annual LGBT Awareness Weeks to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17. Distinct from Pride events, which are celebrations self-organised by the LGBT+ community, Awareness Week tries to enlist the widest possible allies to say that combating hate and hostility towards LGBT+ communities is the job of everyone in the city.

In 2014 our Awareness Week launch focused on getting the Rainbow Flag flown on top of Cork City Hall. That it was the first civic or public building on the island to do so was such a powerful action of solidarity and none of us there will ever forget it. Establishing that precedent allowed the rainbow flag to be raised subsequently for Pride celebrations, to indicate the city’s solidarity following the PULSE nightclub killings in Orlando and, most poignantly of all, flown at half-mast to mark the sudden death in July 2017 of Dave Roche, who had been a member of the LGBT Inter-Agency Group since its formation in 2002.

In 2017 we began a transnational project to gather support for the city’s inclusion in the international Rainbow Cities Network and deepening our relationship with Cork’s twin city, San Francisco. Forging alliances at home and abroad is central to our mission, so it was a fitting tribute to be awarded the 2017 Ally Award at the national GALAS ceremony.

As the 30th birthday issue of GCN goes to print, some representatives of Cork City LGBT Inter-Agency Group will be in San Francisco signing a Memorandum of Understanding between our twin cities, another first – especially as Cork LGBT Inter-Agency will be one of the signatories.