Disclaimer – I’m a member of the board of the NLGF (National Lesbian & Gay Federation), which organised the GALAs. I was therefore involved in a small way in the planning of this event.
The inaugural Gay and Lesbian Awards (GALAs) took place last Friday night in the Radisson Hotel on Golden Lane (a venue that attendees of last year’s Irish Web Awards will remember fondly!), hosted by Derek Mooney and Una Mullaly. The purpose of the event was to provide recognition to LGBTQ people, organisations and businesses for their contributions, primarily in 2008.
And there were some exceptionally worthy winners. It was lovely to see the guys from the Emerald Warriors get credit for their terrific hosting of the Bingham Cup in 2008 by winning event of the year, and I was thrilled to see Labour Senator Ivana Bacik (and my good friend) pick up the gay-friendly politician of the year award. Similarly, there were nods for Gaelick (bloggers of the year), Rory O’Neill (business person of the year), and Google (employer of the year).
The two emotional moments of the night were reserved for the Volunteer of the Year and Person of the Year categories.
The volunteer of the year award was shared between LGBT Noise (not 100% I like the idea of this award going to groups, but I’ll leave quibbles for another day!) and the recently-deceased Noel Walsh for his tireless work in raising awareness of HIV/AIDS. The Noisers made some lovely speeches, but were somewhat overshadowed by Noel’s partner Maurice, who received the most prolonged standing ovation of the night, and spoke with great eloquency about Noel.
The person of the year award went (somewhat unsurprisingly) to Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan. I’ve had my own issues with the campaign for same-sex marriage over the last couple of years, but there’s little denying the visibility that Katherine and Ann Louise have given this issue. Prior to the award, there was a really lovely video of people talking about their work, with the nicest contribution coming from a woman from An Chosán, who spoke about how she learned to love from these two women. In their own speeches, Ann Louise showed once again her ability to bring an emotional reality to a political topic, while Katherine showed off her exceptional oratorical skills. Regardless of my criticisms of the campaign, I’m terribly fond of these two women, and I was delighted to see them win.
Now, as a board member of the NLGF, one might assume that I did a lot of work for these awards. In reality, that wasn’t the case, as Stephen Jacques and Olivia McEvoy did the running from the NLGF perspective, with all of the GCN staff (Brian, Conor, Lorna, Ciara, Lisa and Fionnán) doing incredible work to pull it all together.
It was a proud moment for me to be a very small part of, and it was wonderful to see so many previously unrecognised community heroes get a little credit for their amazing work. Roll on year 2!
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