Out & Proud is back on RTÉ Radio 1 for a second season and this time presenter Trevor Keegan is discussing key moments and milestones in life through the LGBTQI+ experience. Over six episodes there'll be chats and reflections on relationships, parenthood, old age and more.
In this episode, the final of the series, author of Reeling In The Queers, Páraic Kerrigan, Labour senator Annie Hoey and founder of the Irish Queer Archive Tonie Walsh, discuss representation, including some clips from the archives that highlight how LGBTQIA+ representation has changed over the last 50 years.
Read more: Read an extract of Páraic Kerrigan's Reeling in the Queers
Páraic and Tonie give historical context to some of the clips, including the first appearance of a gay man on television in 1975, the almost-but-not-quite first gay kiss on Fair City in the 90s, and a transgender dater casually chatting about their life on First Dates Ireland in 2018.
In 1996, Liam Casey caused quite a stir in Carrigstown. In the episode pictured below, Eoghan Healy (played by Alan Smyth) and Liam Casey (played by Peter Warnock) had the almost-but-not-quite first gay kiss on Fair City.
RTÉ Archives: Warnock went onto Kenny Live in 1996 to discuss the episode.
Despite Imelda (played by Jasmine Russell) interrupting the pivotal moment, Páraic insists it was still an important moment for Irish relevision:
"It was certainly important for this to happen, I mean it was the gay 1990s where you had Ellen [DeGeneres] coming out in the US, you had the Brookside lesbian kiss, you had Zoe Tate in Emmerdale.
"There was a lot happening in the space at the time, and I kind of just feel like Fair City could have been the first to actually have an on-screen gay kiss that could have beaten Melrose Place - which actually did beat Fair City to the pit - but I just feel in that last moment, it was kind of, not necessarily taken as it could have been - as this historically-making moment.
"It was rehearsed and it was written into the script that a kiss would happen," he adds. "But on the day of the shoot, for some reason or another, it was framed as a near-kiss."
As it turns out, it was Ros na Rún that "took victory from the jaws" just a year later with a "proper kiss".
To learn more about gay representation in television, the communities that remain under-represented to this day, and why Irish politician Annie Hoey believes representation in public life is so important, listen back to the final episode above.
Listen to Out & Proud, Tuesday nights at 10pm on RTÉ Radio 1 and the RTÉ Radio app or anytime, wherever you get your podcasts.
