February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Four members of Irish Queers were arrested at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue after they blocked the course of the parade in protest at the exclusion of gay Irish groups in the line of march under their own banner.
Using a 17-foot-tall tripod, the group slung one of their members into the parade route from the corner of 56th and Fifth, momentarily blocking the route.
Afterward, organizer J.F. Mulligan said: “As Irish Americans, we demand to take our place in Irish community celebration,” and attacked Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his appearance in the parade, after the mayor had said he might not attend.
With the parade in full swing at about 1 p.m., the ILGO protest at 53rd and Fifth Avenue consisted of eight placards and about 25 protestors. Some of the placards were simple anti-war messages. Others read: “What world would you want for your gay child?” and “Let Iraq live.”
Last year’s parade was protested by as many as 50 ILGO supporters and friends. One protestor, Katherine Kelly, said that the protests this year wanted to draw attention to what ILGO sees as the link between war looming over Iraq and the centuries of British imperialism suffered by the Irish and how “imperialism creates homophobia.”
Kelly said that passers-by were “generally well-meaning.”
She acknowledged that the group had lost strength since its formation over a decade ago, although Kelly herself has been in New York only since last year.
“A lot of Irish gay people moved to New York then back to Ireland when things got better there,” she said. “That has drained a lot of radical energy from the protests. People are inquisitive.”
Protestors said that they wanted to draw attention to the anti-war protest of Feb. 15 that organizers said was peaceful but overpoliced and the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which they said was militaristic and homophobic.
Some passers-by yelled, “you’re a bigot,” at the ILGO contingent. But across the street, parade watchers pointed to the protesters, one saying, “Look, it’s the Irish lesbians. We love lesbians.”
At Sunday’s Park Slope St. Patrick’s Day parade, members of the third Irish gay group, the Lavender and Green Alliance, almost reached agreement to march behind a parish contingent so long as they did not carry a banner.
But, said organizer Brendan Fay, “they balked at us carrying a rainbow flag.”
In the end, Fay and others marched the parade route on the sidewalk.