Donegal ambassador Noel Cunningham says he still lives in fear of physical and verbal abuse for being gay.
The 70-year-old Kilcar hotelier and showbiz personality said the discrimination he suffered as a child in rural Donegal remains on the streets today.
“If you gave me a million dollars… I would not walk through Temple Bar tonight for love nor money because I would be abused,” Noel told Mary Kennedy and Mary McAleese in a recent episode of The Allenwood Conversations podcast series.
“I would then be fearful of walking any other part of the city, fearful for my physical health.”
Noel says there is still a long way to go for acceptance and the “corner boy” bullies remain today, just as some of them did sixty years ago on his way home from school.
“When school finished at 3 o’clock, we would walk another 40 minutes from there out to the village of Kilcar. And there we would get the tech bus. And if I told you that over those years that I was at that school, I would dread getting on that bus. I would be kicked, I would be abused verbally, all of those things,” he said.
“And I must add, I now carry no ill will or bitterness. I have in fact met some of those tormentors. And I have challenged them, but in a nice way.
“And the extraordinary thing is that some of them have had to come to me to seek help and advice because their own children were in the exact same predicament that I was in many years before,” he said.
Noel Cunningham, who was the 2020-22 Donegal Person of the Year, also opened up about his faith in light of Pope Francis using a gay slur last month in a so-called private meeting, which the pontiff later apologised for.
“I felt belittled, and I felt some of the, probably the sadness of my own growing up resurface, because that’s what I grew up with,” Noel said on the Pope’s comment.
“That was 60 years ago, for God’s sake. The hypocrisy of it all, because sadly, or not sadly, sadly for the Pope, that he didn’t realise, and they in some cases are probably hypocritical enough not to, you know, defend gay people, that his audience, a large number of them, were probably gay as well.”
Noel remains a person of strong faith. He explained: “I know that my God is all-loving, I know that God accepts me and I know that God looks unkindly on those who have made the man made rules. I have no problem with going to Mass and having a relationship with my God, and I also have no problem with recognising the great priests and the great women and men in the church who have done extraordinary work. I think it’s such sadness that a situation where we have a Pope that can think it’s alright behind closed doors to refer to our community in such a nasty, vulgar and horrible way.”
Changing Times – The Allenwood Conversations is an emotionally charged, poignant and uplifting conversation between presenters Mary McAleese and Mary Kennedy and Noel, encompassing many more aspects of his life, from the loss of his sister in a car crash, his alcoholism, and the person who turned his life around.
Have a listen here: https://shows.acast.com/changing-times-the-allenwood-conversations
