OUTLaw Network marched in its first Dublin Pride Parade last Saturday, surrounded by friends and colleagues from across the legal community. We had a wonderful day!
300 people gathered in the Gresham Hotel from 11am for face painting, breakfast treats and networking before being joined by our wonderful DJ Miss Pixie Woo who kindly posed with guests for photos and chatted to everyone.
Barbara Galvin, OUTLaw Network committee member, addressed the room briefly to remind everyone what Pride is all about. She said:
“It would be remiss of me to stand here before you today and not mention that it is 50 years since the Stonewall Riots and 26 years since the first Gay Pride March in Dublin. Both of those events were protests against the homophobic attitudes, discrimination and violence of the day. They galvanised a generation of LGBT+ activists into forming the civil rights movement which has brought us to where we are today: a country which voted overwhelmingly for same sex marriage, which has some of the most progressive (albeit imperfect) gender recognition legislation in the world and whose Taoiseach is gay.
But history rarely moves in a straight line. Anti LGBT+ sentiment continues to exist and, in some quarters, seems to be gaining momentum. We must work to ensure that the progress so hard fought for is not lost. I read a wonderful article in the Guardian this week which I am going to shamelessly paraphrase from because it made the point so well:
If you want to prevent us taking a step backwards (as seems to be happening in the US for instance), the most important thing you can do is join an organisation. Co-operation is what makes humans powerful. Co-operation is what the Stonewall riots were all about. That was the moment when a collective movement was born. Until Stonewall, LGBT+ people conducted individual struggles. After Stonewall, people organised together to change the system itself. 50 people working together as members of an organisation can accomplish far more than 500 individuals. We have 300 people in this room today: imagine what we could achieve! I won’t tell you what organisation to join: there are loads of options, not just OUTLaw. But whatever you do, join in.”
Over 200 of us then joined the Dublin Pride Parade, proudly marching behind our OUTLaw Banner. It was a wonderful, positive and joyful event. We are already looking forward to next year!
OUTLaw would like to thank Eversheds Sutherland for their generous hosting of the event at the Gresham, MHC for sponsoring our DJ for the day and all of our founding member firms for their ongoing support. We would also like to particularly mention Alan Murphy, Managing Partner of Eversheds Sutherland and Julian Yarr, Managing Partner of A&L Goodbody both of whom attended our Pride celebrations as well as Patrick Dorgan and Ken Murphy of the Law Society who marched in their first Dublin Pride with us.
Check back soon for a full gallery of photos from the day.