Irish journalist comes out ahead of referendum on gay marriage

Ursula Halligan, political editor of commercial channel TV3, writes powerful column in Irish Times about torment of being secretly gay in Ireland

The Guardian, Lisa O'Carroll, Friday 15 May 2015

Ursula Halligan: ‘Because of my upbringing, I was revolted at the thought that
I was in love with a member of my own sex.’ Photograph: Alamy

It has taken Ireland decades of scandals involving priests and bishops to loosen the grip of the Catholic church on its culture and laws.

But the repressive days of the 1960s and 1970s were back on the front pages on Friday after one of the country’s most high profile journalists came out at the age of 54.

Ursula Halligan, political editor of commercial channel TV3, revealed she was resigned to “going to my grave with this secret” until the upcoming referendum on same-sex marriage forced her to confront the issue head on.

The TV3 political editor told of the pain and suffering she endured, when at 17 she fell in love with another girl, knowing homosexuality was deemed “an evil perversion”.

In a column in the Irish Times, she told how heterosexuals take love and marriage for granted.

“For me, there was no first kiss; no engagement party; no wedding. And up until a short time ago no hope of any of these things,” she wrote.

Her words will resonate with everyone who grew up in 1970s Ireland – where the orthodoxies of the Catholic church were so deeply engrained in the state that contraception, divorce and abortion were all illegal. Homosexuality was not decriminalised until 1993.

Ireland will become the first country to hold a referendum on gay marriage on 22 May.

Halligan told how she learned to “suppress everything” to the point where she became filled with homophobic feelings for herself.

“In the privacy of my head, I had become a roaring, self-loathing homophobe, resigned to going to my grave with my shameful secret. And I might well have done that if the referendum hadn’t come along,” she wrote.

“Because of my upbringing, I was revolted at the thought that I was in love with a member of my own sex.”

She told how in recent months she had considering coming out and a few weeks ago found a diary she had kept from 1977 talking of her feelings for her classmate.

“These past few months must have been the darkest and gloomiest in my entire life,” she had written.

“There have been times when I have even thought about death, of escaping from this world, of sleeping untouched by no one forever,” her diary said.

Halligan’s article drew applause from many quarters and at one point was trending on Twitter in the UK. Graham Norton tweeted: “A heartfelt heart breaking story - How anyone could read it and still vote ‘no’ is beyond me.”

Halligan said if her words help even one 17-year-old girl or boy to cope with any anxiety they are feeling about their sexuality, “then I had to tell the truth”.

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar pictured in RTE Radio 1 studios today where

he came out publicly on the Miriam O’ Callaghan show. Photograph: Aidan Crawley

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"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

“… Gender Switching

Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."

It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”