Miceal Kerrigan
Interviewed by Bill Thornycroft in the late 1970s
“At the beginning I felt a lot of strength living in the houses. I got a lot of strength and confidence. As time wore on things changed and it got heavier living there. Always the power struggles going on and what have you. Ego battles. Alienated and put a strain on everybody and I wanted to get out of it as fast as I could. In fact Mike and I were able queue up and get one of those hard to let houses and I have never looked back. I have hardly gone back there. Towards the end it got a bit mad. I think the power struggles were there all the time looking back. I didn't really notice them at the time. When I returned from Ireland I got a very cool reception at Railton Road.”
You can read more of Peter’s memories of the Gay Centre here
I think I first realised I was gay when I was about 3 years old. I remember I lived in this house, a very small terraced house, two bed rooms. My aunt's family lived there and our family lived there. My aunt's family were a lot older. My aunt was the oldest. Her oldest son was I suppose about 15 o16 and he had just started work in a factory. It was a very cold day. I remember him coming in from work at lunchtime because the factory wasn't too far away from where we lived. He used to come home and take my hand and rub them and take off my shoes and socks and sit and rub my feet for a long time. I remember waiting patiently every day for him to come and do this. I don't know why he did this. Even when it wasn't so cold I used to wait there patiently. I suppose it was the first sensual feeling. I really looked forward to him coming in. I was about 3 or 4 years old. I thought he was lovely. I can even remember thinking he was lovely. I remember his black curly hair. He would always smell of the factory which I felt was very erotic. Thinking back then, even at 3 or 4, I am not imagining it or elaborating. I just had that feeling.
When did you first realise you were 'gay'? I think it was much later, maybe 11 or 12. It wasn't because I had heard the word. It was something that I could feel inside me. I just knew it. I felt that I really loved looking at other men. It wasn't something like people talking to me at school about queers or anything like that. It may have been about 12 or 13 that I I remember I first heard. It wans't 'queer' or...I can't remember the word. I think it was 'nancy' or something like that. It wasn't queer anyway. Bent...it wasn't that either.
I was about 14 and there was a footballer on the Derry youth team. He must have been about 15 or 16 and had just left school and signed on to the Derry football youth team. He was one of my mates. We were all pals and we would all hang out together. On a Saturday night he would go up with his girlfriend to the local hop and dance. We'd stay out late and he couldn't go home so he stayed with me. It was quite practical and perfectly alright. That sort of things boys do....sleep overnight in my bed. That was my very, very first time ever. I remember coming just by him. It was amazing. Just by touching his underpants and coming straight away and, it was really strange, not knowing what was happening. Suddenly...I mean I was quite worried. I thought I had some sort of kidney trouble. It's funny now. I can remember that first time to this very day and I of course was just quivering jelly. I didn't know what was going on. There were three or four of us hung around together.
Anyway the other one was.....I was closer to the other one because I knew him better because he was a childhood friend. We were born about the same time and we grew up together. The footballer was about 11 or 12. Much later on. The other one, John ?, he was one of my best friends. The next day I remember saying to him about what had happened. In my naivety I thought there was something wrong with me. So I told my friend that this sort of thing had happened and I was wet all over. He was much more wiser to the ways fo the world than I was and he explained to me what was going on. He said 'That's what boys do together' or words to that effect. But I wasn't to worry. It wasn't my fault. It was all his fault because he was older anyway. He didn't put that much guilt on me. He was very excited by what I had to say in a way. Then about 6 months later, it all fits in now, I felt a a bit miserable and guilty about telling John because I realised what had happened. I just felt I shouldn't have said it to him in the first place. But it was all very innocent at the time.
I didn't start wanking until very late on. Not until I was really, really older. About 17. I didn't know what wanking really was. I remember after my....this is incredible...after those things I mentioned earlier, I was shaking, quivering inside while waiting for him to come back from the dance. I couldn't describe it. My whole body was quivering. I could not stop shaking. Then he did come in again. I remember having wet dreams shortly after that about him. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with a hard on but not coming. I didn't know what to do about it so I rushed down stairs and drank loads and loads of water thinking that if I drank a lot of water I was bound to go back to sleep again and I would come. I didn't know about masturbation. I had 3 or 4 years of that. He wanted to kiss me but I just wanted to be near his body. The thought of him kissing me was just terrible.
I had been to confession on a Friday night. That Saturday morning there was special mass at school. I had to go to communion and be in a total state of grace. You couldn't go to communion unless your soul was perfect. I was terrified because I didn't want to go to communion in this terrible state (after sexual encounter). The state of grace had been broken. So I knew there was something wrong. I was one of the very good boys at school and the headmaster was there and it was my turn to go to communion. I looked up and I could see him standing there. So I cheated and lied and went to communion. I hadn't the nerve not to go because if I didn't go then this blue eyed boy would be see as having fallen down. There would be something terribly wrong. So I went and I was very miserable about that. All that weekend I was terrified. My sins were as black as....if I had died that week I would have gone straight to hell.
I rushed to the confessional on Friday again and I said to the priest 'Bless me father for I have sinned. Father, I have committed sodomy.' I didn't know really what it was I had done. It was Sodom and Gomorrah in the bible. The priest said 'With animals my son?' I burst into tears. He said 'What did you do?' and I told him. He said 'That's not sodomy you silly boy.' This was really funny...he gave me my penance of 5 our fathers and 5 hail Marys and should there be any more impure thoughts like this again try and put them out of your mind. Try and think of other things. He said 'Try and think of football'.
It was all very miserable and awful but then Jimmy, who was also very religious in a way, he would come around and he would get into bed and feeling guilty and say 'Oh I'm going home.' Shortly after that he disappeared from the scene. He's married now and lives in Strabane, County Tyrone. So that was really all the beginning of the awakening of my sexuality.
When did you first become involved in gay politics? I was standing in a hotel in Derry in 1968/69. All the journalists and everyone went there because Derry was very much in focus in those days. The rioting had just begun. I remember being taken along there. I was about 19 at the time. Anyway standing at the bar in this city hotel with the riots going on outside and everyone getting drunk....I can always remember this person next to me who said 'I am not a stereotype. You shouldn't think all gay men are limp wristed' and I remember it having the most amazing effect on me. I couldn't here all that he was saying because of the hustle and bustle but I could see him all clad in denim. Really attractive and very good looking. His name was Eugene Haggerty. Oh god it had a powerful effect on me. I remember looking over at this person from the other side of the bar and he was arguing away. He was really arguing with this other person about sexual politics and stereotypes and all differences. I heard bits and pieces of the conversation and I thought....this is what I wanted, this is what I need, this is me. I want to go over and talk to this person and when he went into the loo I followed him in and I told him I was gay. He was so attractive. So good looking. I just couldn't believe it because he was masculine. He wasn't effeminate or anything. This sounds terrible I know but to me it was such a big thing when you are in the closet when you meet someone like that. That was the beginning of my gay politics and we went off to bed together and we had sex. After Jimmy Doherty? I had very, very little sex. I had, more or less, girlfriends.
I didn't know what cottaging was until I came to this god forsaken country. Until I went to the opera with Peter Vetter. That's when I discovered cottaging. At Covent Garden. Death in Venice. There were all these men lined up. Great stuff. I must have been one of those really naive people because when I go back to Derry I heard all these stories about all these young men all around cottages, having it away and all these sort of things. I thought that they must have been doing these things when I was there but I think I must have been disinclined or something.
After that meeting I didn't see Eugene Haggerty very much. It didn't last very long. He moved away from Derry. I've seen him once or twice but he is so besieged by gay politics. I hadn't see any publications at all. I hardly knew what was going on.
I got to university in Dublin. That was the beginning of the real sexual politics. That's where I met Peter Bradley in the canteen. I worked part time in a pub in Trinity. Sexual Liberation as it was called then. This had begun. It had just started. They used to come into the pub for a drink and I started to flirt...I'd pick up the glasses and wander around trying to pick up the conversations. Someone came up to me and said 'Why don't you come to one of the meetings.' Peter Bradley used to look at me and wink at me all the time. I was so nervous. I did go along in the end and that was the beginning. I started to come out. At that time I lived with town centre? colleagues at the time. They were all straight. I began to come out after a couple of meetings. I came out in the true sense of the word, to myself and to other people. That was in about 1972.
How did I get to Brixton? It's a long story but I will try and make it short. At the time I was having a relationship with this French woman Guillemette. It's funny because she knew I was gay. I was a bit confused and lonely at the time and because she was such a nice person we fell into a relationship. Anyway we had got this news of a gay commune in the West of Ireland. In fac they had written to the Sexual Liberation group at Trinity to and asked if they could do anything or if they wanted to go out and visit them all would be welcome. Guillemette and I went off to Castletown and we met Alan Harrison. It was Alan who suggested I come to London. He gave me an address. So I decided to get out of Ireland to get myself sorted out, to sort my head out.
He gave me an address in North London, Martin McCrum, who worked at the Oval House. He gave me an address in Westbourne Park, North London? and I went there. I was very bitchy about Oval House sort of...Oh god, peace, love and brown rice, woolly. He knew I wanted to be involved in politics in some way. Maybe that's a bit unfair but he felt that I wanted to be doing things and he suggested I should go down to Brixton away from Westbourne Park which was very straight.
The GC was open then. I came on a Sunday afternoon to Brixton. I remember in all my naivety getting of the 2b (bus). There was a big triangle just after Atlantic Road where it starts with Mayall Road and there was an off license. There was a group of black men standing around and I remember going up to them and saying 'Excuse me. Can you tell me where the GC is in Brixton.' and this black man said 'Sure. I'm just going home and I can take you up there.' The two of us walked up Railton Road and he said 'That's it in there.' Off he went and it was close in the afternoon. I thought 'Oh well, it doesn't matter. Maybe I'll come back later.' So I waited at the bus stop outside the GC and a minute later this vision in red and purple and diamonds walked past. Flashed his eyes at me, swished around the corner and went up the stairs. It was Alastair. He didn't actually go upstairs. He sort of stopped and looked around and I said to him 'Is the GC open.' He said 'It's closed' and then he went upstairs. The bus was coming down and he came out again and said 'Have you come a long way' and I said 'Yes, all the way from Dublin.' So he said 'Come in and I'll make you a cup of tea or coffee.' He took me to the Indian restaurant at the top of Railton Road and on the way down again he took me to 159 Railton Road. I went in and I felt this was 'liberation' because when I looke around I thought all these people looked like me. I thought 'oh god, I'm not the only one'. This is amazing. This is me, just what I want. All these people are terrific. They were all saying the same things that I was thinking about. They'd all just come back from Brighton and all had long hair. Colm looked so beautiful. I fell in love with him right away. He was really nice. I thought is this real or just my imagination because he looked so attractive. The other people there...David Callow, Jamie (Hall). Terrific. We talked all afternoon. That was it then. My introduction to Railton Road and with all the conversations about gay liberation I knew that is where I wanted to be. We were all going to change the world tomorrow, overnight with gay liberation, in a years time. That's when I moved to St. George's Residences.
I had socialist ideas from way back. From childhood but can't put my finger on just when. I didn't get them from my family. The Civil Rights Movement had a lot to do with it in Ireland and the Vietnam war was going on at the same time. I remember being really, really anti American. I just knew they were wrong and they shouldn't be there. I just people should be able to get on with their own lives. It was very woolly but I saw parallels with Ireland and the colonial situation. It was all very woolly as I say but it was there.
I remember being disappointed by people being very cynical about the socialist movement. I remember talking to Ian? About it and he was fed up being told that he's an embarrassment to the socialist movement being gay. I had difficulties trying to resolve that one with the straight left. That was about 1975. Things changed completely after that. Most gay people now are not so separatist and we are all involved in the broad left in one way or another. But then we were at one time very separatist. Not getting involved with the left at all.
The GC didn't inspire me at all. I was really frightened of the GC. People down there seemed really rough. There always seemed to be this potential for violence in the atmosphere there. I always thought that something was going to happen. I couldn't relax in there. I didn't really enjoy it at all. A lot of people were committed to it and I went along with it but I knew deep down inside I was afraid of it. Some of the dramas going on used to frighten me to death. Dramas period. It was dramas everywhere. The people that went in there some of them every a shady lot. All sorts of stories about people coming out of prison...It wasn't like that all of the time but a lot of the time I felt threatened in there. I didn't like it much at all and I hardly ever went in there. I didn't understand it. All the fuss about the straight/gays
I went to the discos a couple of times. I didn't frequent the commercial gay scene much at the time either but I went there more than I did to the GC. I could relax there and I really enjoyed it. I could drink there and there was a really nice atmosphere there. Different to the GC and I just felt I ws safe there and I wouldn't be involved in any terrible dramas which would explode...to be attacked or anything could happen.
I was involved in some political things around the GC. I remember going down Railton Road petitioning (grant for the GC). Having a stall outside. John and I going to that black bookmakers canvassing. People were really positive. The attitude being that if you are black you are going to be oppressed. I seemed to be logical that there is going to be sympathy between black and gay people. A few people gave us support, some were indifferent. It was okay really. It wasn't too bad. We did alright.
Putting things into perspective. The feeling in the country was different then in 1975/76/77. The ws a whole different atmosphere really. Maybe it's because I was living in...we hardly ever went outside of Railton Road. There just seemed to be a different atmosphere there. The people were more open then. Certainly than they were in Ireland definitely. I was more brazen and bold about things. Maybe naive, I don't know, but I knew I could get way with...walking up and down Railton Road. You would get the odd shout but you wouldn't feel you'd get murdered as you will now. The terrible hostility people feel nowadays. From anything that is even remotely left wing.
Into drag? Oh yes. We were always going around wearing dresses and nail varnish. It was great. Not, sort of, Vauxhall Tavern drag but radical drag. It used to be called was gender fuck. A parody of and challenging masculinity and femininity. Being a man wearing a dress but not trying to look like a woman. That was very radical though I could never fancy a man wearing a dress. It was just a nice feeling to have loose clothing and swishing around in a dress but not for any other reason. For political reasons.
Laurieston Hall? The hardliners versus the brown rice lot. I think this had to do with a big row between Colm and Jamie that was going on at the time. They hated each other. Didn't really know what was going on. I liked Jamie and Colm and Colm was always trying to get me to take sides. I always tried to avoid taking sides. Maybe it wasn't very fair putting all the blame on Colm. Maybe I was very cynical about Laurieston. I can't remember why I didn't go there. It might have been that it was so far away. I got the feeling that I didn't really fit in somehow. It wasn't really for me. I didn't feel jealous about it or anything like that. Maybe I had just fallen in love with somebody. I can't remember what it was. But everyone seemed to have a great time there.
Hets living in the gay squats? I was involved in one of the things that was going on there. This woman, this friend of Michael O'Dwyers, was being made homeless having been beaten up very badly by her boyfriend. She came to live in our house. There was a lot of hassle over that. She needed somewhere to stay so we took her in. Looking back now it seems very patronising. We kept saying to her you are not really gay. Looking back she was dreadful I suppose. She fancied someone Julian fancied and that got her involved in terrible trouble. Julian came round breaking windows and stuff. That didn't seem so bad as.... Petal's sister lived next door and there wasn't so much hassle about that. I think it was a class thing. She was much more confident and she was very upper class and could get away with it. This woman was Irish, Mike and I were Irish, and maybe it was this attitude towards the Irish. It all seemed to come out anyway that she shouldn't be in the house anyway and Petal's sister could live there without any hostilities. Very middle class, bourgeois attitudes.
At the beginning I felt a lot of strength living in the houses. I got a lot of strength and confidence. As time wore on things changed and it got heavier living there. Always the power struggles going on and what have you. Ego battles. Alienated and put a strain on everybody and I wanted to get out of it as fast as I could. In fact Mike and I were able queue up and get one of those hard to let houses and I have never looked back. I have hardly gone back there. Towards the end it got a bit mad. I think the power struggles were there all the time looking back. I didn't really notice them at the time. When I returned from Ireland I got a very cool reception at Railton Road.
At that time different things started to happen. The theatre group began to start up then. I never got involved in anything. Brixton Faeries were great. A lot of amazing things came out of that. 'Minehead Revisited' was one of the best things I've ever seen. Ever, anywhere. It was just amazing. Very clever, very witty, very well done. Classic agitprop production really. Never been equaled. Never seen anything to equal it.
It's funny in a way how Railton Road is coming back again. Being redeveloped. The housing co-op. Single people accommodation. Single flats. In those days Jamie was wanting to knock down the walls (between houses) and live communally. Colm was standing against that and I was confused about it all. I didn't know which way to think about it. It's ironic what is happening now. I was living in 159 at the time when that was happening. At about the same time I was having a relationship with Larkin. As was glad of that in a way. I couldn't stand all these power and ego struggles going on between Colm and Jamie. It's not fair to say that I just ran off to North London because of that but I was glad in a way to get away from all that and not have to take sides. I suppose it was a bit unfair I didn't back one of them, one way or the other. Copped out of it all. I was meeting people in North London anyway and there was a different atmosphere. People weren't as politicised in North London as they were in 159. Glad in a way to get out of all that. When i came back from Ireland) anyway Jamie had left and gone off to live in Scotland. Then I lived here (110 Broxholm Road).
In a way I still like living in Brixton but I want to go back to Ireland because it ( the gov/country?) has become rabidly right wing. I am more conscious now than before of being Irish. I just feel I'd rather go back and live in Ireland. Despite things being worse for gay people in Ireland than here. Even so people are much more open and honest than people are here.
Brixton good because of gay community or wider things? Because most of my friends live around Brixton. I value that. People pop in all the time. In a way I think I have met stronger, closer friends now than I did have when I was living in Railton Road. People that I can rely on. 5 or 6 people I can really trust. Really close friends. Rather than at Railton Road where you knew lots of people but very superficially. These are people I have met since I left straight and gay. I have a lot more in common with them than I do with the gay people at Railton Road. In Railton Road you sometimes got the feeling that you were the centre of the universe. A bit like there was nothing else outside it. Your life revolved around signing on the dole and going back to the houses. Nothing outside of that. The world was passing you by and there was a big bad world outside of there. It's funny in a way that I have got more strength through not being there. Times have changed and the political climate has changed. The Left are now more aware of gay things than they used to be. Gone are the days when you could say the Left are as bad as the right wing. That's not true at all. The Left has a along way to go but there is an open door.
My new friends were a mixture of gay and straight people. But I discovered there were other things in life besides gay politics. I still haven't sold out or anything. I still challenge a lot of anti gay prejudice. I stuck my neck out at my work place for gay issues and gay rights. It's amazing in a way living with Kelly and loads of people at work I have gotten to know. Most of them are straight but they always ask about Kelly. How I am doing, how are we getting along. This sort of thing. I am seem to have achieved ? In a way and I am much more relaxed about everything. Rather than being really intense. I used to get the sack all the time from different jobs for wearing gay badges. Uncompromising and everything and I always ended up getting the sack. Now I don't get the sack because people are more educated and more open. They are not afraid to ask about gay things. It's not perfect but I think it's a lot better.
Things were different then. Because of the recession people wouldn't want to lose their jobs. Don't want to be on the streets. When I fist started work I wore badges. I worked at Christian Aid and every day you would hear about people being oppressed and wiped out in Latin America, and in South Africa. We in Western society, Europeans, think we are the centre of the universe at a time when all these people were starving and being wiped off the face of the earth. It make you think differently about everything.