‘The fear is real...’

“The fear is real! There is feeling there that it could’ve been any one of us.”

For the second time in a matter of months Cavan’s Market Square played host to an outpouring of grief, a revulsion at horrors of days past, and solidarity with those who may need strength into the future.

The scenes in Cavan Town on Friday evening last (April 15) were replicated across the country, with thousands attending vigils in memory of Aidan Moffitt (41) and Michael Snee (58), two men violently killed in their Sligo homes earlier that week.

The Cavan event was organised by Andrew Shannon from Belturbet, who says the murders were something “no one was expecting”.

Yousef Palani (22) has since been charged with the murder of Mr Moffitt on April 10. He is also charged with the murder of Mr Snee on April 12, and faces a third charge of assault causing serious harm to Anthony Burke, arising out of an incident, also in Sligo, on April 9. He has since been remanded in custody to appear by video link before a sitting of the district court on April 21.

Andrew Shannon was home in Cavan when news of the murders first broke.

Part of what pushed Andrew to organise the vigil was an awareness that to be part of the LGBTQI+ community in a rural area is already “isolating”.

“In Dublin, when anything like this happens you always know there’ll be a vigil at the GPO, or the Dáil, or somewhere. But being part of the LGBT community in a rural area is completely different. It’s incredibly isolating. You don’t have that kind of representation, that sense of community. Our strength is in our community. What happened in Sligo should never have happened, not to Michael, or Aidan, not to anybody.”

Pauric Hand is Youth Development Officer with CAMRY (Cavan & Monaghan Rainbow Youth), the LGBTQI+ Support and information service for young people, their families and their peers.

The Sligo killings have had a “devastating” effect already, and he says the “fear” has permeated deeply.

Pauric reveals that many members of LGBTQI+ community in Cavan will be aware of adversities faced by others, awful stories of abuse being hurled in the street, or the chance of physical violence. Some might have experienced those horrific incidences first-hand. Others, Pauric says, might suffer abuse but remain silent, refusing to report such matters either for fear of being singled out further or due how complaints have been handled in the past.

The Sligo attacks occurred just days after Evan Somers was hospitalised following a homophobic assault in Dublin’s city centre. It is also less than three years since Timmy Hourihane was killed in a homophobic attack in Cork.

Difficult

The “euphoria” that greeted the passage of the marriage equality referendum in 2015 “seems distant now” says Pauric. “The fear is real! There is a feeling there that it could’ve been any one of us. We’ve worked so hard to eradicate homophobia, transphobia, to make a better, more inclusive society for all. But unfortunately it’s hard not to see this as a backward step.”

Pauric has been a victim of homophobic abuse himself, both as a child and as an adult. He remembers too the 1980s and 1990s, before 1993 when certain laws dating from the nineteenth century rendered male homosexual acts illegal in Ireland. Those days were “difficult” he admits.

“We had so many things that set the whole movement back, when AIDS came along, a disease that was so misunderstood, that brought with it a whole lot of hatred towards the LGBT community at that time. Homosexuality for men at least still hadn’t been decriminalised. So you lived a life behind a life, hidden away. We felt that Ireland has come such a long way with the marriage referendum in 2015, a movement really driven by the youth of this country, that there was this generational change happening. But scratch beneath surface and it can be a different reality to how we might want ourselves to be seen.”

Accepting

Bee Harding and her partner Lillian Ridley also attended the vigil. They sit alongside Pauric and drape a rainbow flag across their knees. Both believe there is “still a conversation to be had” within Irish society about “accepting differences”.

“You’d think in this time and age that things like this wouldn’t be happening here in Ireland, and then one day you’re in work and you hear on the radio how two people in Sligo have been killed and it’s a possible hate crime. It stops you!”

The Sligo murders, and recent attacks on LGBTQI+ people have meanwhile prompted calls for robust review of existing hate crime laws in Ireland.

Freedoms

Belturbet Independent Councillor, Brendan Fay, is in favour of such a move. He praised the “quickness” with which An Garda Siochana acted in Sligo, and says everyone should stand in support of the LGBTQI+ community at this difficult time.

“Hate crimes are an attack on people’s freedoms. They’re an attack on compassion and love. Those actions should never be tolerated.”

While Labour representative Liam van der Spek says “a lot of progress” has been made in terms of recognising and respecting the LGBTQI+ community in Ireland, more can be done.

“It’s not enough to think [post 2015] ‘oh it’s over and everything is perfect now’. I know a lot of LGBT people, have gay friends myself, who would routinely experience homophobic abuse, slurs or threats of violence. It still happens in 2022. So I don’t think we can let our guards down about that.”

Sinn Féin’s Pauline Tully notes the “violent nature” of the Sligo deaths was “very worrying”.

She considers for “real change to happen”, implementation needs to happen from the ground up. “We cannot let hate and bigotry prevail. Ireland is a progressive country and there must be no place for hatred.”