Dublin, Belfast… (but not New York)

I couldn’t let St. Patrick’s Day pass entirely unnoticed, although a bit like Christmas people seem only to glad to have it over for another year. Of course no one does March 17th better than the Americans (ironic or what? I didn’t even get the day off school).

And so I was surprised to find that the big parade in New York doesn’t allow Irish gays to march behind a gay flag. Irish gay groups have been banned from the parade for the last 16 years as officials try to keep politics out of it.

Please forgive me for showing my surprise at this – America? The promised land of liberty and equality?

As if this wasn’t bizarre enough, in Belfast, where a religious group tries very hard to stop the annual pride parade from going ahead. Where gays are very much an unheard minority. A 50ft gay pride flag (which I have previously dragged round the pride route in 2004) was present in the parade, flanked by members of gay organisations.

People say the Irish are weird, that they have a strange way of doing things backwardly. I would say this is certainly the case when Belfast beats New York on gay rights.