With only four permanent Queer venues in Dublin, is this city is trailing behind? Queer nightclubs are so much more than just the music, and we need more.
In 1979, more than a decade before homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland, The National Gay Federation opened the Hirschfeld Centre in Temple Bar, which housed a support centre, café, and cinema. And most importantly, every weekend, it housed a disco. Hundreds of people visited weekly to dance to the latest music and feel safe for an evening. They were dancing in Dublin’s first queer nightclub.
Since the Hirschfeld Centre, queer life in Dublin has changed a lot. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993, and in 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to vote to legalise same-sex marriage. Although there is a long way to go, when compared to other countries worldwide, Dublin is a relatively safe place for the LGBTQ+ community. Therefore, it begs the question - why have queer venues not become a larger part of Dublin’s nightlife?
In 1990, 200 people attended Dublin’s Pride Parade. In 2024 around 100,000 people attended. The openly queer community in Dublin is rising rapidly, yet the city has just one queer nightclub - The George, which opened in 1985 and draws big crowds to nightly events. Panti Bar, Pennylane, and Street 66 are the only three other queer venues in Dublin, with the three bars acting as important queer spaces in Dublin.
Michal Mencnarowski of Rathaus found that people who attended queer club nights didn’t name dancing as their top reason for going out that night. The top three reasons? Community, culture, and safety.
The city isn’t lacking in queer club nights, with ‘Mother’ in Lost Lane becoming more popular as a weekly event, but the lack of full time-queer venues is concerning. Dublin has just four full-time queer venues, while Malaga, a city with a similar population, has a number of queer venues that climbs well into the double digits.
Queer nightclubs are a lot more than just a venue for dancing. As part of his dissertation, Michal Mencnarowski of Rathaus found that people who attended queer club nights didn’t name dancing as their top reason for going out that night. The top three reasons? Community, culture, and safety. 92.9% of the respondents to Michal’s survey reaffirmed that gay nightclubs serve as “essential community hubs” for the LGBTQ+ community. This is why asking for more queer nightclubs in the city isn’t just asking for more spaces to party - it's asking for more safe spaces, for more community spaces, for more spaces to comfortably exist.
Another queer club night in Dublin is Honeypot, which has hosted a number of lesbian events since it was founded in 2022. Its founder, Emma Murphy, identified it as not just a club night, but also a community. This perhaps shows off the real value of these queer venues - one that hasn’t changed since the Hirschfeld Centre opened in 1979. More people than ever are identifying as LBGTQ+, and the community is growing. However, without expanding the nightlife scene and opening more venues, Dublin runs the risk of falling behind in its support for its LGBTQ+ community.