Journalist, previous Irish Times Environmental Editor and scourge of corrupt property developers and cynical politicians, Frank McDonald has released his memoirs - Truly Frank. It tells the story of growing up in the Dublin of the 1950’s and ‘60s and how a young gay man navigated a scene forced underground.

I realised I was gay when was ten, although didn’t have a term to put on it, when started getting crushes on guys in the class. One in particular, his name was David and wanted to be with him all the time. But it was pretty difficult to cope with because Ireland was such a Catholic country.

The Corpus Christi processions were the most visible manifestations of overwhelming Catholicism. A whole area would be full of Papal flags and bunting and there would be a procession through the streets with an army escort. Public religious devotion of a type that nobody under 60 would remember at this stage.

I was in the Phibsborough Library when was 14 and reading the Robert Frost poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ and realising was going to take the road less travelled. Any notion that had beforehand of getting married and having kids was just gone out the door. You had to pretend that being gay didn’t exist. The repressive nature of the laws, the attitudes of society in general, school friends telling queer jokes as you would feign laughter while you blushed and realised you were one of 'them'.

It was in the public toilets near the People’s Gardens in the Phoenix Park. was in a cubicle and this guy sitting in the next cubicle moved his foot towards mine, and we touched and ended up having it off. That was the clue to the existence of an underground gay subculture in Dublin. Other places were even more notorious. The overground gents on Burgh Quay, the underground loo in College Street behind the statue of Thomas Moore. You met all sorts of people. There was no class barrier. No age barriers. There was a levelling out.

I met this guy who was an academic in Trinity College. He would have been in his mid 30’s and would have just turned 17. He for some reason had the keys to the Trinity Botanic Gardens and he specialised in picking up boys and he would have it off with you on a car rug in between the potting racks in one of the glasshouses.

When I went to college I was only 17. did an Arts Degree in UCD. was fortunate to drift into student journalism, and was working as a junior reporter in a college newspaper. went to New York immediately after UCD and got a job in a bar. wrote back to contacts had in the national newspapers and said ‘I am in New York, could write for you from here?’ So that is how became the freelance New York correspondent for the Irish Press. At the age of 22, was writing about Watergate. was appointed environmental correspondent of the Irish Times in 1986 and then in 2001 they appointed me as environmental editor.

I was in New York City at the time of Stonewall. remember reading The Village Voice and the gays nearly going bananas because they had written a semi satirical piece referring to the people involved as the ‘Forces of Faggotry’ was also in London in 1967 when the House of Commons voted through the amendment to the law which effectively decriminalised homosexuality and could never have imagined that Dáil Éireann would ever do anything like that.

It was quite a warm night in September 1976, was standing outside the College of Surgeons at Stephen’s Green chatting to a friend of mine, and this fresh faced young fella arrived along. He was Eamon Slater. thought he was absolutely lovely. He said he was going to the disco in Parnell Street. said ‘I might see you there’. certainly did. made a beeline for the place. We’ve been together for 42 years and got married after 40.

Everything that has happened in my life has happened by accident and not by design. When was approached to write my memoir thought it would be worth doing because in a way it’s for the benefit of younger generations who know nothing about what it was like to be a child in the ‘50s and ‘60s and what a different country it was. It is nerve-wracking because my other books were all about things, but this is about me, so you feel extraordinary vulnerable.

Franks memoir, ‘Truly Frank’, is out now, published by Penguin Ireland.