Noel Cunningham

Noel Cunningham was born in 1953 in Kilcar. After studying and later teaching hospitality at Rockwell College, he moved to Jurys Hotel in Sligo then on to Cork before eventually taking up a position with Trust House Forte in the UK.

In an interview with Edmund Lynch in 2020 for the Irish LGBTI+ Oral History Project, Noel discussed growing up in Donegal.

“I had an extremely pleasant early childhood. We lived in the country. My father was a farmer stroke butcher; my mother was like all women of that era, a housewife. Opportunities for women were few. Opportunities indeed for us were few in terms of getting to university because money was scarce and unless you won a scholarship or you had a teacher that kind of inspired you and pushed you and spoke to your parents and advised them, then you just left primary school or national school as we called it and went into the workplace.

…in my home situation and in my primary school national school situation, I was aware that I was different and I was aware that a lot of the abuse and the name calling and the hatefulness of my peers somehow or other indicated that, they also thought I was different. And from that grew that geographic sort of nonsense that if I move, I’ll be happy, and I think that was part and parcel of my being happy to leave Donegal and go to Rockwell.”

He also discussed his experience of meeting other gay men after moving to Jurys.

“…you were so full of fear, and you were so full of, perhaps to a point of self-loathing, because of the way you were, that you were almost afraid to acknowledge fellow different people, I’ll use the word ‘different’ because we didn’t use the word gay and homosexual was an unknown entity and sex education, in general, was very sparse and very sort of spasmodic.

It wasn’t in our schools or indeed in our secondary schools. Sex was that dirty word. Dr McQuaid was the archbishop in Dublin; the Catholic Church ruled the country; a Taoiseach couldn’t make a decision without referring to Dr McQuaid. So, it was a really weird time, and somehow or other you quite didn’t know what you were.

And I remember so clearly my first foray into Bartley Dunnes [a bar in Dublin which operated from 1941 to the early 90s and was known for having a large number of LGBTQ+ clientele] in the old days and I remember having something akin to a panic attack at the very thought of going into a gay bar. And counting to ten and saying a spiritual aspiration to give me the courage to open that door and walk in. So, it really was a traumatic time for young people in Ireland who were gay or who were different or who were discovering their sexuality.”

Permission to publish extracts from this interview for the Irish LGBTI+ Oral History Project has kindly been granted by Edmund Lynch and Noel Cunningham.