You’ve got a friend in me

The Founding Cara-Friend exhibition, launched February 3, 2025, at The Linen Hall in Belfast, preserves the legac y of Northern Ireland’s oldest LGBTQ+ charity. Founded in 1974, eight years before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the north of Ireland, Cara-Friend provided a vital lifeline to thousands of individuals during some of the darkest days of the Troubles. Photos by Timothy O’Connell and interviews by oral historian Dr Molly Merryman.

The exhibition contains 21 exquisite portraits of CaraFriend volunteers, including those who founded the charity and steered it through the ‘70s and ‘80s. The project has also interviewed the volunteers, to preserve their stories for generations to come.

The project was made possible thanks to generous funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund NI. It was supported by the team at the Queer NI - Sexuality Before Liberation project, including Dr Charlie Lynch.

A special thanks goes to all the project participants for their volunteering efforts past and present and for sharing their stories. Today, Cara-Friend continues to support the LGBTQ+ community; a list of its services can be found at www.cara-friend.org.uk.

Doug Sobey (Left)

Doug was a member of the coordinating committee that set up Cara-Friend in October 1974. Thereafter, he played an active role in the organisation for 32 years as a member of the General Committee throughout, and as treasurer from 1990 to 2006.

“…In April 1974, we decided to set up a gay helpline using the student welfare phone at the Students’ Union. This effort, however, collapsed immediately because of the many calls that came in all at once. Thus, when after careful planning we set up Cara-Friend that October, in the absence of premises, we could only provide a letter service.

“Then in January 1976, I took a flat in Ulsterville Avenue which had a room at the back from which the Cara-Friend telephone helpline could operate. In May of that year, I was arrested by the police as part of an operation they were directing against all of the Cara-Friend male volunteers… The police arrived early in the morning to search my flat. The Cara-Friend filing cabinet was in my kitchen and I was concerned they would take our befriending files away but they hardly looked at the cabinet, and it became clear that they were only interested in obtaining evidence of personal relations between individuals.

“Eventually, they did prepare a case against four men, of which I was one, but at a late stage, the proceedings were stopped after consultation with the Solicitor-General’s office in London. Had we not had direct rule at the time, the cases against the four might well have gone to trial.”

Stephen Birkett (Previous page)

Stephen joined Cara-Friend during its first year of operation, having read an advert in Gay News. Born in Blackpool, he moved to Strabane to work as a high school teacher in 1973, and became a volunteer after meeting Cara-Friend founders Doug, Jeffand Richard.

“…The law had changed in England—had decriminalised male homosexual activity—but it was still illegal here in Northern Ireland. I came on the boat to Belfast, caught the train to Derry and then the bus to Strabane. It was a beautiful, sunny day, the scenery was gorgeous. I thought it’s a lovely place and the people are so nice…

“Around the time of the purges, I was convinced I was going to be arrested because Doug phoned me and said, ‘Look, they got your name and address’. But I didn’t. Nothing happened.

“But around that time, my house was raided by the police looking for drugs, which I don’t do and never did do. Somebody said to me after, ‘The reason for that isn’t because they thought you’re using drugs, it’s because you’re gay’. And, you know, the police were trying to get the gay community. So it was a very, very strange feeling because I’m a very law-abiding person.”

Paula Keenan (Above)

Paula was born in Belfast in 1956 and has lived there most of her life. She met a few people who were volunteering with Cara-Friend around the late ‘70s and thought it was a vital service for the community and signed up. After a while, a few of the women recognised the need for their own helpline, so established Lesbian Line around 1980.

“I guess I came out in 1976, I was just a bar dyke, a plain and simple bar dyke…But eventually, of course, we had to have some serious conversations, and some women were getting more politically aware in terms of feminism…

“When the soldiers would come into the gay bars they would see the women, and next thing they stupidly would put their guns up against the wall and come up and try to dance with the women. And like, we weren’t about to create any trouble. So sometimes the women would start dancing with the men and all that kind of thing just to try and throw them offthe scent a bit. That happened a few times.

“There were some women who were in marriages and were absolutely terrified of losing their children. The whole thing about child custody was just awful. I’m thinking particularly of Stella Mahon who was very involved in Cara-Friend and Lesbian Line and who sadly died a few years ago. We were all totally aware of her situation— that her husband discovered that she was lesbian and was just awarded custody as a matter of fact, there was no question about it. She lost her child, which you can imagine was absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, absolutely heartbreaking.”

Heather Fleming (Above)

When writing an MSc thesis at Queen’s, entitled Lesbian Lifestyles and Identities in Northern Ireland, Heather volunteered for Lesbian Line, Cara-Friend’s service for women.

“…I started to volunteer for Cara-Friend in the early ‘80s, and there was only one other woman volunteering on the helpline at the time. I helped her for about two to three weeks, and then she fell in love and moved away! Two or three weeks training and I was left doing Lesbian Line on my own. I sort of cajoled someone who had volunteered in the past to come back and help from time to time. And then I went on a wild recruitment drive, and recruited a pile of women in.

“We took phone calls from so many different women and so many different circumstances from all over the north of Ireland…We got silent calls, where someone just couldn’t pick up the courage or maybe didn’t have the privacy to speak. We would say, ‘Maybe just tap the phone or make a sound of some sort. You don’t have to talk. It’s okay, it’s alright. Let me know you’re there’. I would just talk on and say things like, ‘Well let me tell you a little about what we do. We’re a telephone information and befriending service. We’re all volunteers, we could meet you somewhere that’s safe for you if you wanted. You can ask us questions. You’re free to call anytime, you don’t have to speak until you feel ready to’.”

Brian Lacey (Above)

Whilst living in Derry, teaching archaeology at Magee College and excavating Troubles’ bombsites in the walled city’s historic core, at a meeting in his home in 1977, Brian helped found Derry Cara-Friend.

“…We got no help. The local newspapers wouldn’t take our ads, we used to have to go round at night [to plaster up posters] to get our telephone number out. There would be nobody, nobody in the city centre except the British Army and the gays. How we weren’t shot, I don’t know…

“First of all, Cara-Friend was a telephone service to help people ringing with their problems, and then it widened out into education, particularly surrounding AIDS and safe sex. Simultaneously, the big demand—I laugh at this retrospectively, because nowadays, more recently, with marriage equality and looking to adopt children— that would have been fantasy to us back then. What we wanted, from society, from the State, whoever, were discos! Gay discos! That was the biggest thing, if we could achieve that, we had arrived.”