A reader ends up making a point raised in the "Where The Gay Families Are" thread:
The first gay bar I went to was The George in Dublin in 1995. At the time it was the only gay bar in Dublin (possibly Ireland). It was strange mix of cringing behind a locked metal door (you had to ring to get in) accompanied by an unmistakably gay purple painted exterior. I was a very uptight 18 year old and was absolutely dreading what I would find. My straight friend came along with me. It is hard to remember just how hostile the atmosphere was and how even mentioning homosexuality was taboo and I am still grateful to him for coming along (I was best man at his wedding last year). I realise Ireland was a bit behind the times here, things remained taboo for a about ten years longer than the rest of Western Europe.
To be honest, I wasn’t so impressed with what I found.
There were very few guys under 25 out in Dublin in those days and I was too nervy and full of homophobia to give anyone there a chance. An older guy (who seemed very old at the time but might have been 35), freaked me out by pushing me quite hard to go home with him and the whole place seemed a bit depressing. That said, I went pretty regularly for the next few years and then emigrated feeling that I would never find a boyfriend in Ireland.
Funnily enough, the opposite was true. And Ireland, which like many family-oriented Catholic countries, never bought into the whole individualistic liberal ethic of Anglo-Saxon Protestant countries. It moved straight from denying gays existed to wanting them to get married in the space of ten years. The mix of strong attachment to family marriage and social bonds with a belated realisation that homosexuals exist has brought about a very relationship friendly vibe in gay Ireland making it perhaps easier to find durable love there than in the international metropolises to which Irish gays traditionally fled.
The Dish 