Projects & Events
The Gay Project: Out & Outstanding in Cork Awards is a celebration that recognises the exceptional contributions of volunteers, allies, and community champions who bring pride, unity, and positive change to the LGBTI+ community in Cork. The awards night honours leaders from sports, culture, arts, corporate/community allies, advocacy, and more, shining a spotlight on those who inspire with their commitment to inclusivity and impact. You can check out the 2024 categories here.
We’re excited to invite YOU to be part of a powerful community-led visibility campaign that celebrates and amplifies the voices of LGBTI+ people from the Traveller community.
We invite you to share your story!
As part of a community-led video campaign, we are gathering personal stories from members of both the LGBTI+ community and the Traveller LGBTI+ community. Your experiences and voices are at the heart of this project, and your story will help enhance understanding and visibility for both communities. We welcome stories of challenge, joy, resilience, and everything in between.
Whether you want to participate in-person or share your story online, your voice matters in this important project! Here’s how you can get involved:
- In-Person Workshops
Join us for three interactive workshops where LGBTI+ community members will connect, learn from each other, and work together to create a video and print campaign highlighting shared experiences and values. No prior experience needed—just bring your authentic self!
Workshops will take place in early 2025 with dates to be confirmed. You can sign up here: CLICK.
- Share Your Story Online
If you can’t attend in person, you can still be part of the campaign! Share your personal story via our online form. Your experiences will help shape the visibility campaign resources and can be shared by other LGBTI+ members in the campaign. You can choose to stay anonymous if you wish.
Share your story here: CLICK.
Together, we can break barriers, build understanding, and increase visibility for LGBTI+ Traveller and non-Traveller voices.
Gay Project was supported by the Cork Education & Training Board REACH Fund to provide a Health & Wellbeing programme for GBQT+msm (gay, bisexual, queer, trans, men who have sex with men) throughout Men’s Health Month.
Events aimed to address disparities in health outcomes in physical, sexual, mental health & wellbeing, and ageing. The programme was for adults 18+ and was completely free to all participants.
The ReachOut project aimed to assess the need for support and referral services for gay and bisexual men experiencing abuse or control in their relationships and then to develop appropriate supports.
Focus group discussions and online surveys looked at how relationships are perceived and talked about within the community, and what kinds of behaviours and attitudes are considered healthy in relationships between men. We can then design a survey and other research tools based on what we find.
The reachOUT report and summary report are now available and can be accessed on the OSS website.
About the OSSCork
The OSSCork is a Domestic Violence Information Support Service that seeks to promote zero tolerance of domestic abuse and coercive control. The OSSCork provides support services to all victims of domestic abuse aged 18 years and over. The services are tailored to the needs of the clients and as such the OSSCork must respond in a dynamic way and learn about its service users to better meet their needs. The OSSCork offers one-to-one support sessions via appointment and walk-in, a telephone helpline (9-5pm), accompaniment, advocacy and advice
What was the Cork LGBTI+ Advocate Network?
Led by Gay Project, and funded by Cork City Council Social Inclusion Office under the Department of Rural and Community Development, Dormant Accounts Action Plan, the project’s aim was to build a network of LGBTI+ advocates across various community and professional work sectors and educational institutions across Cork City. It provided training, useful resources, promoted awareness raising campaigns that support the work of Gay Project and the LGBTI+ community generally, and to provide a space for network members to work collaboratively to continually develop the networks reach in promoting advocacy.
Building a network of LGBTI+ advocates across Cork is important as it can provide those struggling with their LGBTI+ identities a vital source of support. While Gay Project and other LGBTI+ organisations and groups in Cork provide some fantastic services for LGBTI+ community members, it can be difficult to reach some members. This can be due to a variety of factors such as:
Geographical Location – The person lives to far from services.
Technological Challenges – Some potential service users may not have access to computers where some support/social groups post-pandemic are still hosted.
Promotional Reach – It can sometimes be difficult for community organisations to reach those that need their services most through the more common advertising and promotional methods.
The Cork LGBTI+ Advocate Network provided an opportunity for LGBTI+ advocates to work with Gay Project to build the tools they needed to be an effective advocate to those in the LGBTI+ community.
The network was open to membership of those from various community, public and professional work sectors and educational institutions across Cork City.
Members had access to LGBTI+ advocate training and resources for their organisation members, staff, and/or students. Participants of the training enhanced their understanding of LGBT+ identities and challenged their own biases to become better advocates. By the end of the session participants had developed:
- Understanding – Understand basic LGBTI+ Terminology and how to use it appropriately.
- Challenging – Identifying the issues still faced by those in the LGBTI+ community and how to challenge them
- Personal Development – Develop the tools and skills to be a better LGBTI+ Advocate
- Signposting – Ability to signpost people to relevant LGBTI+ services and supports.
Expungement is a term used to describe the process of removing criminal records from individuals who were convicted under laws that have since been repealed. As the thirtieth anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland approaches, there has been a concerted effort to remove convictions under discriminatory laws as they affected LGBT citizens in Ireland. To inform the public discourse on this subject, Gay Project instructed international law firm Clifford Chance to prepare a multi-jurisdictional survey to establish the nature and scope of Expungement Legislation in Australia, Canada, England & Wales, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Spain. Clifford Chance prepared and produced the surveys with input from local qualified lawyers from Clifford Chance offices in respect of the Australia, England, Germany, Scotland and Spain surveys; Bell Gully in respect of the New Zealand survey and Blakes in respect of the Canada survey. The results of these surveys can be found below. We are grateful to all those lawyers who generously gave their time to produce this valuable resource, and we hope their work will help us to ensure that Ireland has the most comprehensive and sensitive process for disregarding such convictions.nFor the avoidance of doubt, nothing in the publication of this survey constituted legal advice to any person.
For more information click here.
Before The Rainbow…And After is a collaborative arts project led by artist Mark Storor, commissioned by Gay Project and funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It comprises a collection of artwork that includes an art publication, collages, photography, and poetic film installation piece.
It is the creation of all of its collaborators and belongs to everyone: William Kennedy, Roland Baldwin, David J McCarthy (Bunty), Silvio Severino, Lindley Walsh, Will Knott, Tadashi Kato, Jeremy Coleman, William Maloney, Ron Horgan, Carlo Roberto Fulghesu, Ailsa Spindler, Konrad Im, Luke Barrett, Mark Storor, Claire Ryan, Ian Brown, Cathal MacGabhann, Carolyn Collier, Babis Alexiadis, Kate O’Shea, Mike Carney, Adam O’Brien, Michael Standen, Susan O’Shea, Mike Kinsman, Maria Rolston, Ciara O’Mahony, Elaine Howley & Ivan Rynn
Before The Rainbow…and After – first public sharing was on Monday 29 August, Cork 2022.
Watch here
Read here
A Festival of Dangerous Ideas was a unique community education program looking at culture and identity through an LGBTQ+ lens.
An eclectic mix of Scholars and Artists brought Big Bold Ideas about who we are and who we can be. Topics covered included; The History of the Homosexual, Patriarchy and Its Discontents, Sex and Shame and Queer Politics.
There were 12 sessions, each covering a different topic and hosted like a conversation, via Zoom.
In each session there was a ‘Break for Art’. This was a little festival within a festival, consisting of 12 mini performances by Queer Artists, followed by a chat with the artist.
Watch the sessions here.
Ireland is seen as one of the most progressive countries in the world, but for LGBTQI+ People of Colour and Travellers, it can be a very different place. Proud AF was a campaign by Gay Project which aimed to highlights racism amongst GBTQI+ men in Ireland.
The national Proud AF campaign, which was government-funded, platforms Queer men of colour and Queer men who are Travellers, making them loud, proud and visible across the country in washrooms, digital screens, video content and a social media campaign. Gay Project encourages People of Colour, Travellers and their community allies to share their experiences and stories on social media using the hashtag #ProudAF.
Taking part in the campaign were community activist and art director Pradeep Mahadeshwar, drag queen Viola Gayvis, law student and asylum rights advocate Bulelani Mfaco, TikTok star and mental health advocate Darren Collins, and Delroy Mpofu, who has just begun his studies at UCD.
Queer men of colour and Queer men who are Travellers experience both homophobia and racism in Ireland which can lead to isolation and feelings of invisibility in our generally white, settled GBTQI+ communities. We are proud that Ireland is seen as one of the most progressive countries in the world for GBTQI+ but POC and Travellers are often not accepted and included. Through storytelling and lived experience, the campaign explored the racism, bias and exclusion that is hurting our POC and Traveller siblings, such as sexual racism, racial profiling, objectification and fetishisation, cultural differences and discrimination perpetuated by white and settled GBTQI+ people.
Find out more below about the ways in which our LGBTQI+ family are harmed by racism, bias and exclusion. #ProudAF is a call to action that asks the wider community to examine their own behaviours and to change them in order to make our community a more accepting and inclusive place for everyone. Find out more here.
A 2021 study on discrimination towards GBTQ+ people of colour in Cork, Ireland.
This study was funded by Cork City Council and the Department of Rural and Community Development, and was conducted by Gay Project.
This report is an attempt at compiling a contemporary look (2021) at lived experiences of and attitudes towards racialisation and discrimination of GBTQ+ people of colour in Cork, and also to give recommendations on giving support to the same community members. Find out more here.