THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.31 - RORY O'NEILL A.K.A PANTI BLISS

Episode Date: October 12, 2016

Adam talks to Irish drag artist and gay rights campaigner Rory O’Neill (aka Panti Bliss) about growing up gay in 1970s Ireland, escaping to Tokyo, the practical challenges of life with HIV and how a TV chat show appearance caused a media storm with some historic consequences! For links to Panti’s speech at the Abbey Theatre and Jaco Pastorius bits, visit adam-buxton.co.uk Thanks to Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast contains bad, dirty language and adult themes. But first, here's a juvenile theme. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Thank you very much for joining me for another podcast. Adam Buxton here. Thank you very much for joining me for another podcast. It's a beautiful day out here in East Anglia, where I live, and I'm out walking my dog, Rosie. Rosie is half poodle, half whippet. I'm just saying all this for the benefit of people who have joined us this week for the first time. Welcome.

It's a little bit windy. You can probably hear, but it's a spectacular day. A classic, impressive Norfolk day. A giant sky stretches out ahead of me in big, billowy clouds, scud slowly across the horizon. And there is quite a little bitey bite in the air. I've got a fleece and a coat on. How about that? Interesting stuff, isn't it? Let me tell you about this week's guest.

I'm going to be talking today to Rory O'Neill, also known as Panty Bliss, a drag artist, not to say queen, from County Mayo in Ireland. Rory has lived an extremely interesting and colourful life. He's something of a hero in Ireland, especially not just for his drag performances as Panty, but also for his work as a gay rights activist, a kind of accidental gay rights activist, really. He was on a TV chat show in Ireland on RTE in 2014 and he made some comments to the host speculating on the apparent homophobia

of certain members of the Irish press. Well, the whole thing blew up into a big furore, or a few Rory, if you prefer. And this was all in the run-up to a referendum about gay marriage that took place in Ireland shortly thereafter. And it was a very charged and emotive debate. And around that time, Rory went on stage as Panti, his alter ego, and he talked all about gay rights and equality in general in a very moving and articulate way. And the video subsequently blew up online, and that's the first thing that I saw of Rory's.

Since then, I watched a film about him and about that whole incident called The Queen of Ireland I'll also post a link to that speech in case you haven't seen it on my blog when I eventually update my blog maybe I'll post a link on the actual details of this podcast as well just so you can check it out if you want to but i was in dublin in july of this year 2016 i was doing the bug david bowie special there and the afternoon before the show i went to meet rory at the bar slash club that he owns the panty bar and we went downstairs um before the place had opened up,

while the cleaners were in and various work people were bustling about. We spoke about what it was like growing up gay in a small conservative town in County Mayo. We talked about Rory's time living in Japan. And, of course, we talked about the whole RTE chat show incident, as well as other seismic events in Rory's life. It was great meeting him. He's very engaging and he's got a really positive spirit. I don't know why I said that like that. I think that's the only way you can say that someone's got a positive spirit, is in that voice.

you can say that someone's got a positive spirit, is in that voice. But we began our conversation with me asking Rory if he, like me, was a David Bowie guy. Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, So Thriller was your big album, was it? Off the Wall was the album that made me a giant Michael Jackson fan. So when Thriller came along, I was like,

oh my God, the world has just become perfect. Yeah. You know? I didn't get Michael Jackson at all until much later when I started DJing. And I used to DJ at a 50s and 60s diner thing in the West End in London. We were supposed to play just kind of doo-wop and things like that and rock and roll.

But we ended up just playing everything that was good from the 60s and even the 70s. So then I got into Motown and all that stuff and realized how good Michael Jackson was. Yeah, because I was, you know, west of Ireland town, all super straight boy stuff. So I was considered really weird and suspicious for being into Michael Jackson. But I got so obsessed, like I was having American friends digging out cassettes of Jackson 5, you know, rare stuff, you know. I really became obsessed with him, yeah. Yeah, well, this is a theme that keeps cropping up in the conversations I have with people for this podcast, is a theme that keeps cropping up in the conversations I have with people for this podcast of what do you do when the object of your fandom turns out to be someone who's living a

questionable private life yeah but for me actually I started to fall out of love with the music okay you know once you get into the dangerous album that kind of stuff yes and so I already was having a divorce in some ways. So Bad, you were still on board though, were you? Yeah, but Bad was actually the first crack starter to show for me. And it's funny, to me, you know, I have compartmentalised him totally, as in the Michael Jackson that I loved and the later Michael Jackson, who to me is a different kind of thing.

Yeah. But there was a time, you you know i think around the off the wall especially but also around where his weirdness was charming and later on it certainly wasn't charming it became very obvious that he'd had quite extreme surgery yeah yeah and it was uh it was obvious to everyone that it was such a shame that he was because he looked great yeah i mean it's a cliche about it but it didn't take too much thought to figure out that he must have been very unhappy to want to change himself to that degree. Yeah, to that degree.

Because he... Because everybody wants to change themselves a little, you know. We all sneer about that and dismiss all that and say, oh, he went too far and he did that. But on the other hand, would he... It's hard to know, would he have had some of the sort of success that he had if he hadn't? Because that was all part of his weird appeal.

Uh-huh. You know, if he had always looked like Jermaine Jackson, it's hard to picture Jermaine Jackson being that kind of stratospheric superstar. Because there's something about being that stratospheric where we're, you you know oddness

or not being human like in some way is part of it yes and bowie had that too the otherworldly quality yeah where he's not like us he literally is not like us yes whereas i think you know if you look at you know i'm just using germane because that's how michael might have kind of looked like the most normal germany looks like one of us you know and i think if you think of all those sort of mega stars who have lasted the time, they nearly all have that quality. Like Dolly Parton's another good example. She doesn't look like anybody.

You know, she only looks like Dolly Parton. Yes. Is it possible to sustain that sort of mega stardom over a long period and look just like us? But Bowie, I suppose, was more in control of the changes that were happening in his life. Oh, definitely was. Whereas Michael seemed like almost a victim.

Yeah. I mean, it's so complicated because then you could say, for example, you could look at Janet Jackson. And she's done quite a bit to herself too. But we don't, well, you know, she obviously didn't go to quite the same extremes. But also we don't judge women in quite the same way about it, which is interesting. When did you get into Michael Jackson then, when you were like 10 or something yeah i was very young my older sister had some jackson five stuff and it's funny because the two people i became obsessed with at that age were both you know in and around my age a relative close mate was michael jackson and jodie foster jodie foster was the

child star and what was the film that got you into her she had these ones uh witch top mountain ones where she where there's like a spacey alien escape escape from that mountain and i just so it's funny actually that then she turned out to be lesbian because i wonder is that was there somewhere down there's a part of but to me she was you know she was around my age yeah and i totally oh my god you know and she was a superstar you know. Had you seen Bugsy Malone? Bugsy Malone, oh, my God, I lived and died by that movie for ages. Yeah, loved it. And then, of course, as soon as I was old enough to probably illegally be watching Taxi Driver, you know.

And it's just funny. And the two of them remained. The two people that I first started to, you know, identify with the stars, remained famous. What was the name of the town where you grew up? Ballinrobe. Ballinrobe. Yeah. I've watched a documentary about you,

The Queen of Ireland. I don't know very much about Ireland at all. I've only been here twice. It's my second time in Dublin. But the impression that I get superficially

is of quite a conservative culture. Yeah. Fairly religious culture. Well, you know, I would say that actually that's not really so true anymore.

Obviously, Ireland has changed dramatically. But when you were growing up. But when I was growing up, you know, that definitely was true. I mean, you know, I would say that actually that's not really so true anymore. Obviously, Ireland has changed dramatically. But when you were growing up. But when I was growing up, you know, that definitely was true. I mean, I was, you know, born in the 60s, in 68. So I was growing up in the 1970s. And Ireland at that time was still deeply, you know, it was the Hollywood version of Ireland still, especially a small town in the west of Ireland.

So it's pretty much almost a classless society in some ways. But there was one upper class in the town. That was the vet, the doctor, the bank manager and the priest. They were the four that were put in a separate little box. And my father was the local vet. And so being the vet's child, you know, I was sort of in that little box already. Yeah. You know, being slightly different or something.

Well, that's how I felt about it anyway. But yeah, I was totally old school conservative, going to masses and the confessions and the communions and confirmations and the day of the year that everybody goes to the graveyard. And I was an altar boy. And at Easter, I was the altar boy for the nuns in the convent. And, you know, the works. My early primary school was taught by nuns, mercy nuns. My middle sort of primary school years were taught by Christian brothers.

And my secondary school, high school, was Franciscans. Right. Like, I had the full pack and were they generally pleasant you know they're a mixed bunch you know the impression you get now is that they were all horrifying terrible monsters and there certainly were those i went to a couple of convents and they were very nice yeah well in wales this was you know there was a there was a thing you know even as kids where the you knew the year you were dreading. Yeah.

Because that class was taught by whichever infamous nun or Christian brother. I mean, there was a very violent Christian brother in my primary school. Yeah. And he, in later years, ended up being prosecuted and everything. But for me, it really crystallized in my high school years because I went to boarding school. Now, whenever you say that to somebody, especially an English person,

I think they think of faggots and all of that stuff. And a boarding school in Ireland run by Franciscans is nothing like that, like deeply conservative. Not a sniff of a bit of bum sex, you know, nothing. And mine was pretty conservative. Like we weren't allowed to play foreign sports. So you weren't allowed to play soccer, for example. Quite right.

This was in the late 70s and early 80s I would have been there. And this is before all of the scandals in the church here and before all of the sex abuse stuff and all of that. But even then, we all knew as boys which Franciscans was the ones to be wary of and which one was, you know, interfering with the other boys. And all the adults knew it too. How did you know that? Because of just rumours? Well, there was one particular guy,

and I can name him because he ended up, you know, being prosecuted and everything, and I think he's dead now, actually. His name was Father Ronald. And they would call him the Bursar. So at the beginning of the year, your parents would give him a little money. And during the year, if you needed money to buy table tennis balls or whatever it was you needed, you know, he was like a little banker. And all of the priests had an office. And outside they had these little traffic lights.

And you would press the bell. And if the light went red, it meant, fuck off, you know, I'm busy. If it went green, it meant come in. And if it was orange, it meant, wait a moment. That's a good system. Yeah. So you go down to his office.

But he had this other job, which was he was the sex education guy, which is just so incredible. And so all first years and second years, twice a year, they had to go to his office for the talks. And so all of the boys would be in these giant study halls in the evening, you know, whatever, 200 boys in each hall or whatever, all studying with another Franciscan priest supervising it all, deathly silent. And then over the Tannoy system would come Father Ronald's voice and he would say, would Rory O'Neill please come to my office or wherever.

And we all knew what that meant. It meant Rory O'Neill's getting the sex talk. And then as you get up and go to his office, you know, the other 199 boys would make masturbation noises. They go with their mouths like that, you know, and then the Franciscan in charge would be, you know, trying to dampen it all down. Yeah. You know, but that Franciscan in charge would be trying to dampen it all down. But that Franciscan knew what we were referring to. Now, he never touched me, which I always wondered.

I was a mouthy kid, and maybe he recognized my gayness and knew that I would, I don't know, talk about it or something. I don't know. So he usually picked on the kind of weaker guys or the boys who didn't really have many friends or who were sort of socially awkward. But we all knew, and everybody would come back and then we'd all gather around their table

during the study break to find out did anything happen and if so, what happened. You know, it was totally open. Oh my God. And I always have this really very clear memory once. So this guy gets called down and he's like one of those. He didn't really have any friends. He was really awkward.

You know, he would dress in little suits and everything. And I remember him coming back and he was quietly crying. And there's 199 cruel boys making that noise. Anyway, so when all the sort of scandals emerged and everything, people started talking about that stuff. But it always annoys me. I know that we can say it was a different time and people didn't really understand the effect that might have

on young people and all that. But it does annoy me a different time and people didn't really understand the effect that might have on young people and all that, but it does annoy me when we pretend that people didn't know, as if these paedophiles were operating in secret. They weren't. It was an open secret. Perhaps some people just didn't believe it. I mean, I think there might be some of that in it. Because, you know, gossip and malicious gossip is so much a part of being a young person anyway.

Yeah. Well, the other thing is, of course, now there is also a tendency just much a part of being a young person anyway. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, of course, now there is also a tendency just to condemn them all in a big suede. And I also look back with a much more grey view of it because in some ways, there was another priest, for example, he liked to put the boys on his knee and cuddle and all of that. But it never felt in any way threatening or weird. To me, I think he was just a lonely guy who'd lived his life, you know, with no physical attention from anybody. You know, he was a celibate, you know, Franciscan.

And I think he got some joy out of the physical cuddling and tickling and all that. And I think now people would look at him and think terrible things and be, you know, the internet would destroy him, you know. Whereas I never felt with him any fear about it or weirdness. It was a little weird, whatever, maybe. But there was nothing threatening about that.

I think he was just enjoying some physical contact. He was a man who probably in his whole adult life never really had a hug, you know what I mean? Right, right. And of course that's entirely different than from what Father Ronald was doing down in his office to boys. Yeah. So when all of that stuff came out, and of course there's entirely different than from what Father Ronald was doing down in his office to boys. Yeah. So when all of that stuff came out, and of course there was other scandals,

like two of our most famous priests here, because Ireland was a country where individual priests could be famous. One was a singing priest, you know, go around the country singing and everything. And another then was our cardinal. And both of them, within the space of a couple of years, turned out they had hidden women lovers and had children and had kept the children secret from everybody and had used church money to raise these kids and everything so all of these things in the last 25 years absolutely decimated the power of the church here and which of course I think is a good thing but I

think sometimes outsiders don't know that and they still think we're in 1970. Yeah, yeah. So religion was never something that you were that preoccupied by yourself. It didn't have its hooks in you too badly so that you were consumed by guilt and shame or anything. No, no. I mean, I always had a healthy dose of cynicism about it,

or certainly once I hit my teenage years. But I was very much, you know, a cultural Catholic, and it took me years to think it was all right to not bless myself when I passed at church, just because that's drilled into you as a kid. Certainly, you know, when I started finding out I was queer and all of that and started having sex and stuff, there definitely was some lingering Catholic guilt,

but actually I sort of missed that. It just added spice to the whole thing. It did, it sort of made it a bit more exciting. You know, I think a little Catholic guilt isn't bad for your sex life. Sure, yeah, that's right. A bit of mystery, a bit of sense of transgression. Yeah. And how old were you then when you sort of became aware that you were gay? Nowadays, it seems impossible to believe this, but I didn't really know what was different about me. And until I was in my late teens,

which seems incredible now when, you know, a 14-year-old, two clicks of his mouse, and he's watching Brazilian boys fucking each other. You know what I mean? But I had never met a gay person. And there was no gay people on TV. Except caricatures, except John Inman. Exactly. The only one I remember is John Inman on Are You Being Served? And he was just there

to be a bit of jokes and followed around by canned laughter. But I'd never, never met a real live living gay person. Like I always say, you know, this seems incredible now, but when village people were on Top of the Pops and having their big hits, like, you know, in my town, we didn't think that they were gay. We just thought they were a bunch of lads who liked to dress up for fun. You know? Sure. Because we had no frame of reference for a leather queen.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It meant nothing to us. Right. So he's dressed as a construction worker and he's dressed in some sort of motorbike outfit. Right, right. I think I thought that as well. It's just like they're fancy dress guys.

Yes. And, like, even I have such a clear memory of. It's just like they're fancy dress guys. Yes. And like even, I have such a clear memory of the first time that boy George was on top of the pops. And the next day in school, there was a huge conversation

about it, but the conversation was about whether he was a man or a woman. That's right. The idea that he might have just been a flaming queen never entered our minds.

Same here. You know? Yeah. I was like, well, I just wanted to know, like, wait, wait, wait, I just, I genuinely don't understand. Is he a guy

who's dressing up like this, or is it a woman who looks a bit odd? What's the deal? Exactly. And, you know, of course, you say that to a 20-year-old and 18-year-old now, and they just think, you know, you were living in the dark age. That's right. Honestly, the way it was. And then when did you come out to your parents? And I got the impression, again, from

watching the documentary about you, that they are very loving parents. Yes, they are, yeah. And they were never going to reject you, throw you out, freak out in that way. No. Now, I never imagined for a minute that they were going to throw me out of the house or anything like that. Yeah.

But it was still a huge, nervy thing to tell them because my parents are very religious. Uh-huh. And they're very... Now, they were never Carrie's mom, you know what I mean? It was still a huge, nervy thing to tell them because my parents are very religious. They were never Carrie's mom. You know what I mean? They weren't waving crucifixes around or anything. But they go to Mass.

My mother goes to Mass every day. And my mother is a minister of the Eucharist. She gives out the communion. She would clean the church with the other ladies. My parents kneel down beside their bed every night and say prayers. You know, they're proper Irish Catholics. So there was always just this concern, and it's probably unfair to them, really, but you just can't help it, you know,

the fear about it. So I had told my siblings first. When I told my mother, I actually blurted it out to her unplanned. We were in a car and she said something that I misinterpreted. And I thought what she was saying was, I know you're gay, just tell me. But she wasn't saying that at all, it turns out. So I just blurted it out.

And for three days she just sat on it. And then we had a proper conversation about it when my dad wasn't there. And my mother had the usual things that mothers have. She thought I was going to grow old and be lonely, and, you know, she was worried in that way. And I never doubted for a second that she loved me, but my mother did take a few years to really get her head around it because it was in conflict with what she'd been,

everything she'd been brought up to believe. What sort of helped her to get started on getting her head around it was her brother is in some ways her best friend in some ways. And he's a Catholic priest in England. And he has been a Catholic priest in England for whatever, 50 years or something. And of course, in Ireland, being a Catholic priest put you into that special box with the doctor. And priests used to, in this this country march around as if they owned the place and everyone doffed their hat to them and you know the priest practically ran the

place nowadays it's gone the other way that i think a lot of priests are afraid to wear their collar in public because they get abuse in the street but catholic priests never had that in the uk they were always the minority little group whatever and and my uncle a lot of his job is almost like running a community center. You know, they have the weddings and the baptisms and all of that. And there's a little pub attached to the hall and all that. So he's always, of course, had a more relaxed, heathen, British, Protestant, not God-fearing attitude to homosexuality and gays. And so many other things. So my mother called him,

and he basically told her to get over it. Right. And I think that started her to work it out. Did she ever have a conversation with you where it was like, I'm just worried you're going to go to hell? No. I mean, my parents,

they are deeply personally religious, but they've never been that way. They never bashed it over the head. So it was just the practical considerations. My mum said the same thing to me at one stage, I remember, when we were talking about sex. And she said, you know, and some people are gay. And I was like, right, okay, I've heard about people being gay. And I was like, well, how do you feel about that? And she said, well, you know, there's lots of very nice gay people, but the only thing is that it's a very, very lonely life

and a terribly sad life because you can never have children and all this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what my mother... I sometimes give out to gays, because they're especially young gays, who they go home at Christmas or something and they announce at the Christmas table that they're gay and then, you know, dad opens his mouth

and says something that's not perfect and then it spins out of control and they have a big row, you know, whatever. And I would say two things. You know, first of all, it probably took you five, six, seven, ten, I don't know how many years, to come to terms with your fucking self. Yeah.

And you're the gay one. So why do you expect your dad to be just the perfect Hollywood dad about it in a split second? You know, it's unfair to just splurt it out over the turkey and then condemn him because he didn't say exactly the right thing

or because he says some stupid things or, you know, whatever. You know, it's just unfair. So I used to, well, the internet's kind of ruined this or email but I used to say write a bloody letter because the letter isn't instant you can compose your thoughts perfectly explain exactly you know you're coming out can be the perfectly written coming out and then your parents can get it and they don't have to respond that second and say something that they

wouldn't if they'd had a minute to think about it of course course, nowadays, with instant WhatsApps and all of that, that's sort of been ruined. So coming out, I think, is harder. My dad was incredible because he came in for his lunch, well, for his dinner. He came in for dinner

in the middle of the day in the West of Ireland. And my mum told him first. She went out to the car when she heard him coming in and she told him. And he came in and said to me,

well, don't you be worrying about what I think? And that was literally the only thing he said about it. It didn't bother him a split second in any way. And I, for a while, was suspicious that he only acted that way for my mother's benefit, that he thought, oh, my wife is upset, so I'll just act super cool about it. But I've spoken to him since. He says, no, it just never bothered him. And he was the kind of man, of his generation, he used to use the word queer and all that. And I sort of asked

him about that. And I said, yeah, but how could you be that cool about it? Like you used to say, you know, queer and that. And he said, Yes, but, you know, in my world, queer really means odd. And to me, gay people was odd. It was different. I didn't, you know, whatever. But he said, I never meant it in any way maliciously or anything. And I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with being a vet. Now, you'll probably introduce me to some horribly homophobic vet and prove me wrong. But I just kind of feel that there's something about, you know, he's a large animal vet, you know, on the side of a mayo mountain. And you see nature at its absolute most up close and in its messiest and dirtiest and weirdest. And nature is unboxable. close and in its messiest and dirtiest and weirdest and nature is unboxable it is gross and extreme and weird and wonderful and amazing and exciting and thrilling you see the best and the worst of it you know the horrible diseases that happen to poor sheep for no god reason and the you know the beautiful things that happen as well we know whatever and somehow i wonder

does does knowing that or seeing nature like that every single day up so close, does it just give you a relaxed attitude that life's, you know, multifaceted and weird and unboxable? Yeah, nature finds its own way. Yeah, and some people are gay, you know. I sometimes wonder that. But then, like I said, I'm sure there are, you know, horribly anti-gay vets out there somewhere. Yeah. You know, you don't hear about too many horrible vets.

No. Anyway, it's one of my lesser-known theories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jingle break, it's a break from the podcast In between the next bit and the victim once lost Every now and then you have to take a little rest Otherwise you're going to get tired and depressed Take a look around, think that you exist

Think about the person you last kissed Right, that's enough Now think about keys Think about sausages Think about trees Think of alien vehicles Moving out in space Think about the wonder On the little baby's face

Now think of Stevie Wonder's face On the baby's face Now stop thinking completely Because you're ready for the next part Of the podcast Here it is. We are sat in your club right now, the Panty Bar. Yeah.

How long has this been running? It'll be nine years in November. That's cool, man. That's hard to run a bar, isn't it? Well, what it is is I had spent years working in bars and nightclubs. That's how I spent whatever, 30 years doing it or something. And it was always other people's bars and nightclubs. And as I was sort of approaching 40, I was thinking, well, what does an aging drag queen do?

Now, I'd already started moving into the theatre and that sort of stuff. But I think I could hear my mum and my dad. What's going to happen when you're old? You know, whatever, the usual thing. So the obvious answer for an ageing drag queen is to open a bar. And an opportunity presented itself and I thought, well, okay.

But of course, I thought, you know, I had the little Coronation Street idea, you know, that it'd be easy and nice and whatever. But we opened six months before Ireland's economic Armageddon. So it was super hard the first few years, like so hard. You know, so many bars and clubs in the city closed down and people stopped going out. We lost half our customers to London, Berlin, Sydney. Yeah.

So it was really hard, but it got easier over time. And now, you know, nine years later, it's much easier. And I'm very lucky. I, you know, Shane, the bar manager, you know, has been here since day one. And really, he runs it. It should be called Shane Bar. Yeah. He runs it on a day-to-day basis.

So I'm lucky now. I just, I don't really worry about it and I used to do shows here every weekend but as I got older and you know whenever and I travel a lot obviously with my other work so but I'm lucky that I I can I can bugger off to Australia for a month you know with the show or whatever and I don't really worry about it I just check in a bit and but I know it will still be standing when I get back. That's cool. I was a bartender for a long time, and I always thought if absolutely everything else went tits up, I'd open a bar. Not to say that that's like the last resort option, but that was always an attractive option for me.

I always thought, yeah, I loved working in bars, and I loved hanging out and bar culture in general. It was always fun. And you spent a long time in Tokyo. I loved hanging out and bar culture in general. It was always fun. And you spent a long time in Tokyo. I did, yeah. What made you go out there and how old were you? I had been a student in art college here in the 80s. And Dublin in the 1980s, oh my God, it was so grey and depressing and there was no work and there was no fun as far you know whatever

and i think if you were gay as well like you know it was really pretty grim at least i felt it was at the time so i finished college and i was getting out of here you know and i was either going to go to the usual places london or paris or wherever i always wanted to go big and exciting. And I had spent my summers working in London or France or whatever. And I had a brother in London, so that would have been the obvious choice. But

then I read this book about train journeys in China by the travel writer Paul Theroux. Oh yeah. It was called Riding the Iron Rooster or the Red Rooster. And it's about train journeys in China. And I had this other friend, this girl called Helen, and she's also pretty adventurous.

And she's actually much more adventurous than I am. And she read the book, too. And we were like, that kind of sounds exciting. And this was before the fall of the Soviet Union. We thought, that seems exciting. Let's do that. We were 20, 21, whatever. So nothing seemed weird or impossible.

We just did it. So we then decided we were going to get the Trans-Siberian Express and we were going to go across China. And then we realized, well, we can't stay there. Then what we do, you know, we thought, oh, at the time, you could go to Tokyo and teach English was the thing, you know.

This is all pre-internet and it sounds so crazy now but you know we had no visas, we had no right to be in Soviet Russia, we had no right to be in China or all those things and no idea how to start but somewhere we'd heard a rumor or read in some magazine

or something that somewhere that there was a professor in a university or read in some magazine or something that somewhere that there was a professor in a university in Hungary, in Budapest, who could get you sort of vaguely illegal, vaguely illegal, I don't know, tickets for the Trans-Siberian Express. Okay. And so we decided what we'd do was we'd try to get to Japan by train. That was going to be our adventure. So that's what we did. And we just went to Budapest and had to hang around for like, I don't know, two or three months, just trying to find this possibly didn't exist

professor. And in the end, we did find him. And he did sort of, well, you know, he wrote something on a piece of paper. And then we just got on a train to Moscow, even though we had no paperwork or anything. The last thing they were worried about was two Irish 20-year-olds with horrible haircuts. So what was he writing out for you then? He gave us an address and it was all whatever Russian we had a clue. So we just got to this Moscow train station and got off the train from Budapest. There was no advertising, there was no nothing, you know, it's proper Soviet Russia. We just give this piece of paper to, you know, a taxi-looking man,

and he takes us to a building, and we go in, and there's a funny little office in there, and we hand over the letter that he wrote for us, and they give us a ticket. All handwritten, everything was handwritten. And so then we went and we got the Trans-Siberian Express, and spent a few weeks going through whatever, Mongolia. And that was the only way you couldn't turn up at the station and just, like, buy a ticket? Not that we knew of.

Yeah, it was all very cloak and dagger. And, you know, everybody has a job, and half of those jobs are checking who you are and what you have with you. So we, on the advice of anybody we met in Budapest, we just turned up with bags of nylon, stockings and Marlboro cigarettes. To trade.

And we just traded our way through everywhere. It was all just from reading a book and just being fearless young people. You know, my mother had known, you know. Anyway, and we got to Japan eventually. I started teaching English at first, but I pretty soon fell into doing drag again yeah and oh so you'd already been doing that and I've been doing I had actually been doing drag as a college student and doing a little bit of in the clubs here or whatever I had studied design but

you know by the end I knew I'd rather kill myself than be a graphic designer performing in clubs that started taking a much bigger yeah part um And that actually all comes from London, too, because I had spent a summer working in London and living with my brother. And my brother was very good friends with Lee Bowery, a performance artist. So, you know, I was 18 or whatever, and Lee was the most incredible person I'd ever met in my life.

Oh, right, so you met him? In my mind, yeah. Yeah. On the very first night when I arrived in London, my brother had a party. You know, this is my little brother. He's gay, too, my older brother. Yeah. On the very first night when I arrived in London, my brother had a party. You know, this is my little brother. He's gay too, my older brother.

Yeah. And Lee was at the party. And so the rest of the summer, you know, I was working in a restaurant in Covent Garden and I would finish up work at night

and then go to these clubs that to me were just so mind-blowing. You know, whatever, the Daisy Chain in Brixton or Bang or whatever, all these sort of

big gay clubs. You know, and Lee would be working there and he'd look after me. And knowing Lee was sort of an entrance into a whole other world of excitement. And it just blew my mind. And I don't know how many of your listeners know much about Lee, but just Google Lee Bowery and your mind will be blown.

So that's actually what got me interested in it. Anyway, so I started doing it in college and making the odd few crates, a bit of pocket money and all of that. Sure. Anyway, so I started doing it in college and, you know, making the odd few crates, a bit of pocket money and all of that. But when I found it in Japan, I had no plans to be doing it per se,

but one of the very first people I met and, you know, became immediate besties with was an American drag queen. So we started

doing a double act. He was originally from Atlanta, Georgia and he had come out of the same scene, you know, RuPaul's from Atlanta and all that.

So he'd come out of that scene. Right, okay okay we started doing a double act and so for four years we did a double act our USP you know was that we were foreign you know so you know yes so we traded on that shamelessly for four years and just did the clubs and all of that and then because we were foreign you know we'd they'd stick us in pop videos and whatever. We did a little tour with Cyndi Lauper. No way. Yes.

She had brought out some sort of remix album or something, our greatest hits. And on it, there was a sort of reggae-tinged version of Girl Just Want to Have Fun. And she released that as a single. So whatever, early 90s. It was probably 10 years since the first album.

I don't remember. And she made a new video for it, which had a bunch of drag queens in it. So when she came to Japan, she wanted foreign drag queens, you know. So that was us.

Oh, reggae-tinged remix album. Yeah. That's a tantalizing prospect. I don't think the whole album is reggae-tinged, but the... Yeah, that track. That track, well, yeah prospect. I don't think the whole album is reggae changed, but the track was. Have you been back to Tokyo since?

I have, now not as often as I would like to. And do you find that it's, because I was there with my comedy wife, Jo, years ago, in around 2003, and we did a show for BBC Three out there. we were out there for about 10 weeks

and made a huge impression on me were you in tokyo or yeah we were in tokyo yeah it's an amazing place staying in the rapongi district near the tokyo tower and i really loved it yeah but it seemed like somewhere that was i mean then joe who's much taller than i am he was like a celebrity there because he was so much taller than most of the people there yeah and they would just stare at him like whoa look at this guy so yeah i can't imagine what it was like with that plus uh looking like as you describe yourself a giant cartoon woman well it's funny because they have a very odd attitude or very different attitude to sex and sexuality than we do yeah so on one they don't believe in the concept of sin so there's no moral judgment about it so if you want to be a drag queen and you know our two guys want to shag or

whatever there's no moral judgment about that in that sense they don't think that that's right or wrong. It just is. So in that sense, they're very open. But in the sense that anybody who somehow is not conforming to the general way of things, so anybody who has a gay lifestyle, if I can say that, who's not getting a little office worker wife and settling down in the suburbs and having the two kids and you know all that stuff that is considered really nuts and so although their attitude to the actual sex acts is totally cool their attitude to everything else is is much stronger than ours so so it's very difficult to be gay in Japan. It's considered absolutely out there. So how are those two things reconciled? Well, they're not really. You know, there's lots of gay people on the TV and all of that,

but they don't want their son to be gay in any way, you know. So it's hard to be gay in Japan. But the other thing, of course, is that they have a very relaxed and long serious historical tradition of men dressing up as women. Yeah, of course. In Noh and Kabuki and all of that. So, although obviously the kind of club drag that we were doing isn't the same, at the

same time, they don't, it doesn't shock them or weird them out. They just think it's all fun. It's an odd one. In some ways, they're very relaxed about these things, but then in other ways, they're much more uptight about it than they are. But also, being a foreigner there, you know, the rules are relaxed for you anyway.

And you have much more freedom to behave in ways that they would think are odd. I mean, I absolutely loved my time there and, you know, it was exciting. It's really a great place. How long were you out there for in total then? Just under five years. was exciting it's really a great place how long were you out there for in total then uh just under five years oh that's quite a while how was it coming back then after that well it's funny um i came back for a couple of reasons one of them i actually i became

ill and the doctor said you need to just rest for a couple of months and i just couldn't do that in tokyo anyway but also around that time I was thinking, my time was probably coming to an end there. Five years, you think, okay, well, I want to go to Paris now or whatever it was. But there was also for me a thing, and I think about it a lot sometimes when I see immigrant communities here who look immigrant in the sense, if I say that, is that in Japan, even though i've been there for five years nearly i realized i was never going to be japanese and i would never be thought of in that way

even if your japanese is perfect and even if you did get the office lady wife and all that stuff it doesn't matter and every time you step onto the train there, you're always the foreigner. And I kind of thought, do I want to live all of my life where every time I step onto the train, everybody assumes I'm a tourist? And that was one of the reasons why I thought, you know, I think my time is up. So I absolutely love it. And I love Japanese people and had such a great time. And I have lots of super great friends to this day from that time and but did I want to live there forever no I didn't so you came back to Dublin yeah yeah and it was uh quite a different place than the one you'd left I came back and I thought I'm just going to hang out for a while see some people and then I was going to go off

but the Dublin I came back to was entirely different than the one I'd left only five years beforehand. And so this was around what year? It was only 95. So it was the early part of the Celtic tiger, you know, the boom, Ireland's economic boom. And for the first time, I felt that Dublin was suddenly like, full of like possibilities, things were happening, you happening. It was physically changing. There was cranes everywhere. Things were going up. Everything was changing. And for the first time ever,

young people weren't just emigrating. The whole Irish immigration thing, of course that has been economically driven, but it's also part of the national culture. It's expected. It's a small island. So as soon as you finish school, you go off and you might come back.

But for the first time ever because there was so much work here and money here your club culture had really taken off in a big way and um it just felt like a really exciting place to be and sort of the first time ever i thought god i think i might stay here this is fun you know and i did and for a good 10 years you know you could make really make things happen here and your main source of income at that point was performing was yeah entirely really well performing and promoting club nights you know they were sort of all tied up together and you've earned a certain level of notoriety in Tokyo and so did that come fairly quickly back in Dublin

yeah you know Dublin is still a small city so it's easy to make a mark really quickly if you in Tokyo. And so did that come fairly quickly back in Dublin? Yeah. You know, Dublin is still a small city, so it's easy to make a mark really quickly if you really try hard. But I have this great old friend, Niall, from college. He's an absolute genius graphic designer. But we started, you know, promoting performance-y type club nights.

Like art happenings almost. Yes, they were sort of somewhere between an art thing and a club. So people were drinking and dancing and taking drugs or whatever, but there'd be nuttery

going on and installations and whatever. And that was sort of new to Dublin, this whole thing where everybody would dress up and wear crazy outfits

to go to things. So we did a lot of that and then we started a fetish club just because we thought that sounds like a fun idea and, you know, bizarrely, the next thing you know,

it's really popular and nutty. And we would do these kind of extreme performances designed to sort of shock people, you know. What were some of the ones you remember of those? Well, they mostly involved me taking things out of my ass. So we would do things like, I'd be lip-syncing to Dolly Parton doing 9 to 5 and Niall would be dressed up as like a boss, and I'd be like a secretary,

and he would pull the lyrics of the song out of my ass like a sort of a karaoke machine, which actually takes a lot of planning to make that work. And you've got to get special paper. Yes, there was a lot of technical details. We did another one. The most famous one we used to do was called Pearl Harbor, and I think it was the only one where I'd be, I'd be on one of those, you know, those things that revolve a car in a showroom.

Oh, yes. So you're obviously on that. And then he would pull this long string of pearls out of my ass. And we did millions of variations on it, like shoving minced meat in my mouth. And then he'd turn a handle on my back and pull sausages out the back. All these kind of just nutty things,

which were just designed to loosen people up because I think you know if you go along and you start to see something and you're like oh my god

I can't believe they did that yeah it then sort of gives you permission to be as wild as you want to be or whatever but of course then as I got older

those things lost their allure well more just like you know there's things you can do just for the crazy fun of it when you're in your 20s whatever that you know if you're doing them in your 40s look just like and you know there's things you can do just for the crazy fun of it when you're in your 20s whatever that you know if you're doing them in your 40s look a bit grim

you know so um well so you start to lose muscle control and so we kept on doing that but then over time we grew up and we started doing more serious type events whatever and then i sort of moved started moving my shows into the theater anyway and or sort of the comedy slash theater space and uh and eventually then i and then I sort of started moving my shows into the theatre anyway or sort of the comedy slash theatre space and eventually then I was at the sort of space where you know, Panty was very well known by that sort of arty community or the clubbing community

or the gay community, whatever, and I just plotted along doing my thing you know, forever. And then of course I don't know how much you know about it, but then eventually what happened was I became a national fucking treasure like it's all so weird these days, you know. Panti's a full-on establishment character, and Trinity College gives her honorary doctorates,

and she opens science fairs. Like, it's just so odd. And was that something... We'll talk about that in a second. Was that something that came from that interview on the chat show initially? Was that where that all started? Well, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where it started,

but yes, that's what exploded it. Right, that was the watershed. You were HIV positive? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At what point were you diagnosed then? It wasn't that long after I came back from Japan, so 95 or 96, probably 96, I think. Was that part of the reason why you weren't feeling well in Japan?

Yes, I think it was, but I didn't know that at the time. Right. And it's hard to remember now exactly what it was like getting a diagnosis in those days at the time it was a death sentence yeah i always laugh about it because then i wasn't expecting it and which is probably stupid of me but i just i literally wasn't and you know and i'd been to lots of aids funerals and you know whatever my doctor called me and asked me to come in and see him at 5pm. He was very specific. And I now know, I didn't at the time, but I'm warning you now, if your doctor ever asks you to come in specifically at 5pm,

it means it's bad news. Why 5pm? Because he doesn't want there to be other people outside waiting. He doesn't know how you're going to take it and how long he's going to be in there with you, so he doesn't want another appointment. He doesn't want to have to say to you, OK, you've got to go now, dying guy. Did guy did they have counselors stood by in those days no they absolutely

didn't now my gp is a lovely man and so i go into him he gives me this news which essentially what he's saying to me is you're going to be dead in the next few years you know if you're lucky it might be five maybe even ten if you're spectacularly lucky but you know he i could see he was hating having to tell me whatever and no so he tells me and i you know you walk back out the door but i also myself i knew lots of people who had died and so i knew exactly what it meant or whatever what was the moment like though did you feel faint or did you you know i think everyone thinks oh my god something giant has just happened to you and it's going to be a transformative experience.

To me, what I really remember looking back is him. I remember how awkward he was about it and all of that. I mean, I do have one of those slightly things where I know exactly where everything was in the room. You know, I can still picture his pain and all that stuff. But actually what happened is I walked out of his office. It was like this lovely summer afternoon and everyone's just going around.

And my overwhelming thing was actually fury. How the fuck can you be wandering around going into Tesco as if nothing has happened? And something has just fucking happened. You know, that's sort of my feeling about it. But then what happened, you know, then I went

to the clinic, you know, he sends you off to the clinic and i'm all these years later i'm still at this clinic it was the grimmest place in the world it was just full of sick and dying people at the time there was still hemophiliacs still hanging on a lot of drug addicts and the gays you know like the oddest bunch of people at the time time, they were throwing AZT at everybody. You know, that was the first drug that they thought might do something. Now it turned out it did fucking nothing. Maybe make it worse, I think. But so they were just giving you a pile of AZT.

And then you go in next door and there's a counsellor. That's my real memory of it because the counsellor's job at the time was to, it was like they were sort of putting you on a conveyor belt and they were easing you on and the conveyor belt was going to end, you know, in your funeral. That was the attitude about it. And, you know, she starts listing off all the sort of benefits you on a conveyor belt and they were easing you on and the conveyor belt was going to end you know in your funeral that was the attitude about it and you know she starts listing off all the sort of benefits i can get you can get a blanket allowance you know because they were just assuming i wasn't going to be working anymore so they moved on to the practicalities immediately yes yeah and i i remember sitting here and she's going on about all this stuff blanket allowance

and just all this stuff and i was just like they've made a mistake. I feel fine, you know. You've made a mistake. But actually, there's two things about it. I think people always think that it must have been this huge, life-changing event. But in some ways, it wasn't, in some ways. Because, well, certainly for me, I think partly I've always been the sort of personality I just get on with it. I've never been a worrier.

Life has to go on. The dishes still have to be washed. You still run out of, you know, laundry tablets. You know what I mean? You just do the dishes and brush your teeth. That doesn't all stop, you know. You still get hungry and have to make, you know, a sandwich. So in some ways it wasn't the big defining event

that people all think it was. I mean, in other ways it was, of course, too, but also I look back and I think actually i was very lucky because very soon after i was diagnosed one day the doctor says oh there's a new thing you know that you know looks like it might help or whatever you know i think they were putting me on these experimental new drugs about a year after i was diagnosed which were those well they're called antiretrovirals and they're the ones that have transformed everything and And now, in the beginning, there was a time when I was carrying around a pillbox,

you know, with 38 tablets that I had to take every day. And some had to be taken with food, some without food, some in the evening. You know, just managing all those tablets was a full-time job. And most of them came with side effects. But over the years, they just constantly refined that. The drugs got better and better and better at what they do. And, you know, and now for... God, I i don't know how many years but for quite a number

of years now i take one tablet in the morning and get on with it and it doesn't have any noticeable side effects nope i mean i was on another one on one tablet a day one for a couple of years which did have side effects but i was so used to years of dreadfulness that I thought, this is fine. It used to make me dizzy and my equilibrium was a little funny and it would give me really intense dreams and not in a good way. Oh, man. But then I changed them once just for totally, they wanted to give me another regular tablet for a regular thing. And it interacted badly with the drug I was taking, So for a while, I tried to take this one. And the other one that they gave me temporarily, I was like, oh my God, I love this one.

There's no side effects at all. So I've been on that one ever since. It totally eradicates all of the HIV from your system. You're not infectious. Nothing. The only reason it's not a cure is the virus can go latent. Right. And if you didn't take it, it would come back.

Parts of the body where the drug doesn't get to easily, like, I don't know, lymph glands or something. And then if you stop taking the drug, it will waken up and go, oh, I got free reign again, and it'll start multiplying, whatever. So it's a functional cure, is what I would say. I mean, what they say is it's a manageable condition now. It's one of the few very heartening things about modern life

isn't it that things like that were in our lifetime tombstone the tombstone yeah and oh my god and it was just like you are absolutely fucked if you get that yeah and there's no cure and there's no way i mean it was it was sort of worse than cancer yeah although of course the we're lucky that we live in places where you can get the treatment for that because it is expensive and, of course, in most parts of the world, people don't have access to it or whatever. Yeah, yeah. The other thing, well, the thing that still lingers,

now it's not as bad as you see, but it still lingers quite hard, is the stigma around it. There's still a huge stigma around being HIV positive. Is that from friends and family or is that from employers is it a legal thing how does it work i mean there are a number of countries who technically don't allow you in if you're hiv positive now most of the western countries have changed have changed that now thank god but um well i mean i think first of all certainly in ireland but in everywhere really we a great... We're really great at shaming people for their sexual behaviour, you know. And, of course, there's this really annoying thing where they say,

oh, and believe me, you get it all the time from the trolls on Twitter and all that. Basically, you brought it on yourself. No, surely not. Not on Twitter. It's such a friendly place. You know, you deserve it, you know, whatever kind of thing. You can say that to me if in your whole life you have never, ever, ever taken any risk of any kind, if you've never crossed the road with that perfectly looking both ways for us.

We are about eating, drinking, breathing and fucking. I mean, that's who we are. And if you are able to, you know, resist those prime allergies all the time, well, good for you, whatever, you know. Whenever I talk publicly about it, I'll get online, people say, oh, well, yeah, you can say that, but my taxes are paying for your tabas. And that's true, and I'm glad they are.

But does that person run up to somebody in a wheelchair in the street? How did you get your work? And he says, oh, well, I crossed the road without looking and I was hit by a truck. Get out of that wheelchair! You know, you don't deserve it! You can crawl along the street, you know. But people, you know, feel they can blame you because it's a sexual thing,

but they can't blame you. Yeah, I mean, your taxes are also going to look after all of us who drink and smoke and do all that shit. But there's a shaming. But there's even a shaming in the gay community about it, too. And what I always say is, if the history of the Gay Rights Movement has taught me anything,

it is that the single most powerful thing that anybody can do is to come out. Because it's people coming out is what changed the world's view about gay people. Because it's really easy to hold prejudices against people you don't know. And I think the same thing about HIV. Like, I can name two people

that are fully publicly HIV positive. One of them is Charlie Sheen. Yeah. And so the vast majority of people think that HIV isn't in their lives. They think it's not something that doesn't affect them. It's something they read about in an article in the paper or whatever. But if every single person who's living with HIV just came out today, everyone, gay and straight, would realize, you know, lots of people.

Yeah, of course. But they just don't feel that they can tell anybody. But HIV is in your life. You know lots of people who are living with it. And it's hard because there's a lot of stigma about it, but that would be the way it ended if everybody could just get up and say, well, actually, I'm HIV positive too.

And so how does it work? And, you know, you'll tell me if you don't want to talk about any of this. How does it work on a practical level when you're dating and when you're having sex and things like that? Like, I don't want to minimize it because it's a thing. But to be absolutely just brutally honest with you, it makes no difference to my life.

I get up in the morning, I take my tablet and I go on. And most mornings I have that moment, did I take that tablet? Because I just do it on autopilot, you know. So I never think about it until we have these conversations or I have to go to my twice yearly little checkup. The only time it's a fucking pain is in your dating. And I'm single.

And every now and then I'll meet somebody and start dating. And then you think, well, when am I going to tell him this thing? It's like coming out constantly. It's like the same feelings of worry and all that stuff about coming out when you were gay. It's like having to do that every time you meet somebody new. People's reactions vary. And some of the people that you think, okay, well, he's educated and gay and whatever. You think he'll know the story, he'll be fine about it,

he'll be the one who will absolutely freak out. And then somebody else you're really worried might freak out, and they'll be cool about it. And they're freaking out because they feel that you're contagious? Yes, despite the truth that that is a big thing. I'm dating somebody at the moment moment and this has happened a few times and where I've gone and you know,

by the way, I'm HIV positive and they go, I am too and we both have this big relief because, you know,

and actually on these dating apps and that you often see people who say you're looking for other positive guys and that's why. Because they don't

want to deal with it. They just don't want to have to deal with the hassle, you know, of trying to explain everything. And it doesn't matter how many times you give somebody the facts. You know, I am infectious. You know, this, that, and the other.

It's just the hangover of that bloody time with the tombstones on the TV. And it was the scariest thing in the world. And you're all going to die. You know, that lingers on. That fear lingers on. Yeah, of course. We referred to your national treasure status, to your transformation from humble drag queen to being a spokesperson for gay rights. Would you say that's fair? Is that how you feel?

Yes. Well, actually, it's worse than that. In that sometimes now here in Ireland, I'm expected to be a spokesman for all sorts of equality issues or something. You know, because what happened was Panty became this sort of symbol of sort of a new Ireland or symbol of equality or whatever. And in some ways, that's nice and lovely. But were you being political when you would do your performances? Yes. My theatre shows always, you know, on the surface, they're funny and whatever, but there's always a serious political intent with them.

But in this particular case, I went on a light entertainment chat show, you know, did a silly performance and then sat down for the usual chat. And so I was not going there in political mode. What was that show? It's called The Saturday Night Show. It's your typical Saturday chat Show. It's your typical Saturday chat show. And that's on RT? Yes. It's on RT, our national

broadcaster. And basically what happened was, we're having the chat. It was before, long before we had a marriage referendum or whatever. Long before all of that. Yes. When was the equal marriage referendum? The marriage referendum was last year in May. So it's just over a year ago. Oh yes yes

2015. And I was on this TV show like two and a half years ago or something. So I guess it was in the

ether. We knew that there was a likelihood that at some point we might be having a referendum on

same-sex marriage. Anyway so a conversation came up about being gay in Ireland and homophobia generally or whatever.

You were on the show as yourself not as Panty. Well both. They did a bit of trickery it's a live show but they did a show as yourself not as Panty well both they did a bit of trick it's a live show but there's a bit of trickery and Panty was on early okay and but in this situation yeah during the chat I'm Rory yeah so it was a kind of a casual discussion about homophobia whatever and during that discussion the host asked me he essentially

asked me to name the kind of people I was talking about. And I named some very well-known Irish journalists. And I mentioned a particular fringe, ultra-Catholic right-wing organisation which campaigns on abortion and against gay rights. That's their raison d'etre. So I named a few. Now, as far as I'm concerned, it was very innocuous. I also then gave a very gentle description of what I thought homophobia was and how it can be very subtle and small.

Whatever, I thought nothing of it. And neither did the host of the show you know and i was all fine but then six of them sued me but they also sued ortie for defamation this was this sort of religious group and the journalists yeah a couple of the journalists that i'd mentioned by name and then four three or four members of this organization. Two of whom I'd never even heard of in my life. And what happened basically was, the defamation laws here are very strict and archaic. The onus is not on the plaintiff, in a sense, to prove that they were defamed. The onus is on you to prove that you didn't defame them. And so in this country the media are absolutely terrified of defamation suits because there have been some major ones.

And so what happened was none of the mainstream media would write about it. So for a while it was a total non-story, but then sort of the online media started talking about it, they're a bit more fearless. But then what happened was RTE took a very practical view. What they did was they paid the money to make it go away. They settled. Okay. Rather than fight

it. And then that exploded what had been a sort of a fairly minor-ish scandal into a massive, huge scandal which was about homophobia, about how Ireland treats its gay citizens, about whether the gays are allowed to say what's homophobic or not, but also about censorship and free speech and the role of the national broadcaster and all these things. Oh, because the first

inkling that anything had happened was it was taken down offline. My interview was taken down offline. So that's what brought in the issues of censorship and all sorts of stuff. And also there's just something about the timing. It lit a fire among people who were sort of saying this sort of backward-y view of Ireland, actually we thought we'd kill that. And so there was like thousands of people on street protests in the city centre, big posters in shop windows, we're on team panty, you know, receipts in restaurants

that have team panty written on the wall. Like it just became a huge thing. And then in the middle of all that, I went and I made a speech at the Abbey Theatre you know, receipts in restaurants that have Teen Panty written on the bottom. Like, it just became a huge thing. Right. And then in the middle of all that, I went and I made a speech at the Abbey Theatre. And it was during the run of this show that had been running for months, and at the end of every performance, they invited a different politician or personality

or thinker or artist or whatever to somehow react to the show, you know. And they asked me to do it on just the very final performance of the run. And I almost said no, because there was just a lot I was getting sued, there was just everything was going on, whatever but I know them in the Abbey very well

and I've had me show there and they've been very good to me so I thought, oh my god, I'll just go and do it so I turn up zero expectations I had written the speech that afternoon I gave this speech which is about homophobia and oppression I turn up, zero expectations. I had written the speech that afternoon. I gave this speech, which is about, you know, like homophobia and oppression.

Like, nobody wants to hear that, you know what I mean? And then I looked it off, and it immediately just exploded and went viral. And so then this reignited the whole thing, and it became this huge sort of deep national conversation about homophobia and, you know, about about Ireland it was very just deep conversation and um yeah just sort of trundled on but it resonated across the world though didn't it yes it did so bizarrely like I always laugh and you know so I started getting messages from you know all the famous gays you know Martina and RuPaul or whatever you know like the Pet Shop Boys made a fucking dance track out of the speech.

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just so nuts what happened. And in lots of ways, it sort of changed my life. I mean, I'd been plodding along fine. I'd been doing these shows and at the bar or whatever. And I'd be making these speeches at prides and giving out or whatever. But it just exploded onto another sort of level. And then, you you know suddenly you're

getting invited all over the world to speak at universities and you know you know they're giving you a proclamation from new york city council like it's just weird you know and you're a fucking drag queen you spill things out for us you know and it's i spent 25 years trying to get people to take what i do more seriously and then you know in the space of a year, in some ways it went too far. Right. And now, certainly in Ireland, everything I say is taken so seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And everything is poured over. You know, because I got into drag in the first place because it was underground and nutty and transgressive and, you know, it was kind of punk and two fingers to everybody. You know, and now... Now you're the political establishment. Yes, it's weird.

It's funny. You've got rights, equal marriage rights in Ireland as well. Yes, it's weird. And now that you've got rights, equal marriage rights in Ireland as well. Yeah, well, what happened was then, so after all of that panty gate, it's called here, that had only just sort of died down, and then, of course, the referendum for gay marriage was announced.

And so obviously then I was very involved in that or whatever. So it all sort of rolled into both. But one good thing that had really come out of the panty gate thing was it meant that the whole country had had this really deep at times philosophical conversation about how ireland treats its gay citizens and about how do we really feel about them and homophobia and all of these things so by the time we came to the referendum campaign we actually had a relatively i won't say totally but a a relatively calm, nuanced discussion. Because a lot of the stuff had just been dealt with during the whole sort of panty gate thing.

And to be honest, I think a lot of the reason, I mean, they might deny it or whatever, but I don't know, but I suspect the reason they sued, especially the national broadcaster, is they were aware that a referendum campaign was probably on the horizon. And I think the sort of anti-gay forces decided we need to stamp out

the word homophobia because if you go on a TV debate or something and you say oh well the gays shouldn't get married because this that and the other and if somebody can say well you would say that because you're a homophobe it kind of undercuts you know so I think they wanted to set the parameters

and they said, right, if we let this bloody drag queen call us a homophobe on the national broadcaster, you know, that they wanted to lay down the rule for the national broadcaster. They wanted to put manners on RT in a way and say this is how it's going to be, these are

the rules. I think it all backfired on them, I think. I don't know if you ask them, they'd say it was one of the worst decisions they'd ever made because it turned the country against them, sort of. So now Ireland, am I right in saying, is the first country in the world to have... It is the first country in the world to introduce marriage equality

through a popular vote. In every other country it's been done through legislation. It's not something that we wanted to do. It would be much easier to do through legislation. It's not something that we wanted to do. It would be much easier to do it through legislation or whatever. And a referendum, as you Brits now know, is really risky. Sure.

And if you don't get the answer that you're looking for, you really need a bind. Just have another one. Well, it's very hard to have another one. Usually you can have another one for like a generation or something. Indeed, as we've discovered, yeah. So it is a risky way to do it and everything but but in saying all of that about it being risky all that if you do do bioreconprendium it's a much more powerful way to

do it because in other countries now people will still carp and say oh it was brought in by a police and they'll try to undo it and they could easily undo it here you can't say that no we had a long six month deep conversation exactly about it. Exactly. Everybody got together. Especially as it's about how you feel when you're walking down the street. Yes. You don't want to feel that everyone's wandering around going, ah, I didn't, you know, this was foisted upon me. Yes, exactly.

And they can't. And because the result was overwhelming. So it wasn't, say, like you're Brexit and really close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was absolutely emphatically, yes. And also it's more powerful also in a way that I hadn't anticipated in the sense that I thought that the day after the referendum, everything would just be the same except, you know,

gay couples could get married. But actually it's actually been much more than that. I think the gay community here just feels much more self-confident about their place in our society because we know exactly where we stand. You know, and before the referendum we might have hoped that we thought it was that way or whatever, but now we absolutely know that that is the way people feel about us. And that has, you know, really expressed itself in lots and lots of ways. Like, you see gay couples holding hands, walking around the streets.

It doesn't look like you didn't before. I'm from a tiny little village in the west of Ireland. I had last pride here in Dublin. I'm here in Panty Bar, this group of like seven or eight young people like all you know 20 years old kind of thing all from Ballinrobe County Mayo and I'm like Ballinrobe has a fucking gay community like you know it has transformed the country in that way

and I think Irishmen in general are very proud of it because I think they kind of say it was a way to sort of say to the world no that way. And I think Irishmen in general are very proud of it because I think they kind of say it was a way to sort of say to the world, no, that vision you have of Ireland from your Hollywood movies and all of that with the priest still running around

with his crowbar or whatever, you know, that ain't true. You know, I think Irish people are sort of proud that it sort of, it sort of was like a stamp. It was like sort of saying this is who we are.

This is what Ireland is now. And I think Irish people are really proud of that. So all in all, it's been very good. This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop.

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There you go. Rory O'Neill, also known as Panty Bliss. Really loved meeting Rory, and I'm very grateful to him for making the time to talk to me. Huge thanks as well to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support on this episode. Much appreciated, as ever. Thanks, Seamus. I do apologise, if you're a regular podcat, for the lack of rigid regularity as far as when these podcasts come out.

But I hope that you're all getting used to the idea that they just sort of come out when I'm able to do them, really. And I have to slightly juggle the time it takes to put them together with all the other very important stuff in my life. Oh, you know, I've got to go on TV very occasionally and be glib. What else do I do? Toss around on Twitter occasionally. Actually, a nice thing happened on Twitter the other day. It was a great example of what I really like about social media,

which is the opportunity to get recommendations and links to things either you'd forgotten about or didn't know about from people. And it was a nice little fortuitous path that opened up thanks to Julian Barrett, who tweeted a picture of one of Jim Moyer's paintings. Jim Moyer, a.k.a. Vic Reeves, of course, who you probably know is really quite an accomplished painter, an artist. He does these sort of grotesque caricatures almost of people, but that doesn't really sum up how good they are. And Julian tweeted this picture that Jim Moyer had done of the band Weather Report,

and Julian wrote, that Jim Moyer had done of the band Weather Report. And Julian wrote, Jim Moyer's painting of Weather Report, sometimes the universe gets its act together. And it really struck a chord. I thought, yeah, I agree. I love Jim Moyer's paintings.

And I'd forgotten that I love Weather Report. And I went back and delved into a couple of records that I have of theirs. And sure enough, they're great. And it reminded me, of course, that Jacko Pistorius, the bassist, was in Weather Report. These are all people that Joe and various other school friends were into in a big way at school that I never quite got my head around at the time. But more recently, I've seen the value in it and got really excited by it. And Jacko Pistorius, especially, apart from being a genius doing things with the bass that no one had really done before, was also an interesting and troubled individual.

And there's a great film about him called Jacko, the movie, J-A-C-O. And it had been on my list, you know, of things I wanted to see, but it kind of fell off or I forgot about it. And Julian's tweet reminded me that I wanted to see it, so I hunted it down. It's really good. Some extraordinary footage of him at various points in his career. He had a very short life, unfortunately, and the story of why that was is told.

And there's also footage in that documentary of Jaco Pastorius working with Joni Mitchell and touring with her band for a year or two. And I'd never made that connection before. I don't know much about Joni Mitchell. I've only got the sort of obvious albums of hers. But of course, the album that Jaco played on was Hegira. And I remember an old friend of mine talking about how much he loved that album.

And I kind of ignored him because my that friend had sort of questionable taste in other areas as far as I was concerned so I was like oh yeah well there you go that's an album I'm not going to seek out but of course he was absolutely right it's an amazing album adorned with all these wonderful and strange bits of bass work from Mr. Pistorius. So I've really been enjoying that album the last few days, Hijera. And it's all thanks to Julian's tweet. So there you go. I'll leave you with that inspiring story.

Until next time we're together, please take very good care. I love you. Bye! Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Bye. Thank you.