Remembering Ireland's AIDS Crisis with Tonie Walsh

To celebrate Pride week and Ireland’s rich LGBTQ history, we wanted to dedicate this weeks podcast into looking at a particular moment of time that sadly took the lives of so many of the country’s queer citizens.

Ireland’s first AIDS case was diagnosed in 1982, and the mass hysteria and misinformation that was spread during this period ,caused damage that is still prevalent within the community to this day. Tonie Walsh otherwise known as The Godfather Of Gay, lived through 80’s and 90’s in Ireland and London, where he saw over 40 of his friends and lovers perish from the disease.

As a one of Ireland’s most prominent LGBTQ Activists, Founder of The Irish Queer Archive & Gay Community News, Tonie has dedicated a huge portion of his life documenting and preserving the memories and stories of Ireland’s queer community. In this week’s episode he does an extraordinary job of sketching out how devastating and scary of a period this was for some of Ireland’s most marginalised groups.

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