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FOR MANY YEARS, the conversation around drag in Ireland has tended to centre around the scene in Dublin, thanks in part to the proliferation of drag nights taking place in venues like The George and Panti Bar.
Consult your calendar on any given week and you’re certain to find an event taking place in the city, whether it’s starring one of our own performers (Davina Devine, Victoria Secret, Veda, Pixie Woo, Shirley Temple Bar, Panti Bliss and Dolly Grip, to name but a small handful) or a RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni passing through.
Nowadays, however, you can’t talk about drag in Ireland without mentioning the rest of the country. While they may not have as many drag performers, the scene has come on leaps and bounds in recent years.
Take Kiki St Clair, for instance, who has been performing around Galway for seven years. He was first exposed to drag when he attended a bingo night hosted by local drag queens Dusty Flaps and Jane Eyre Square. Not long after, he saw Panti Bliss and Veda perform at a festival. He was instantly enamoured.
“I was like, ‘I need to do this,’” he explains. “It was empowering to watch.”
Dusty and Jane took him under their wing and Kiki St Clair was born. He describes his drag alter ego as “a heightened version of myself”.
“I’m an introvert at heart but that tends to change when I’m in drag,” he says. “To this day I still don’t understand how I ended up being a drag queen. I wouldn’t say my day to day personality matches up with what people imagine a stereotypical drag queen to be. But there is no stereotypes in drag anymore, it’s becoming so broad with so many subcultures. It’s really exciting.”
Having performed in Galway for seven years, Kiki says that the drag scene has made small, but significant progress.
“There was a period of three, four years that I was more or less the only queen in town,” he recalls. “Cut to last Friday where I organised a drag competition with nine Galway-based competitors. I was shocked that I had that many entrants but also extremely excited.”
“It proved to me that there is potential in Galway for a glittering drag scene.”
It was a far cry from when he first started and encountered abuse.
“Drag is cool now,” he says. “When I started it was not cool. I remember when I started first the gay boys in the club would shout slurs at me just because I was in drag. My own people. This would never happen now.”
He credits reality show phenomenon RuPaul’s Drag Race with helping to popularise drag within the wider community.
“Without a doubt in my mind, Drag Race has done wonders for drag,” he says. “Some queens may not like the show or agree with what it stands for but every queen has been able to ride off the success of that show.”
Nowadays, he is able to gig at least once a week as Kiki St Clair. He also hosts a monthly club night and drag show, Club GASS, in Roisin Dubh each month.
“It’s a great venue with an amazing stage and a platform that Galway drag has never had in my time here,” he says.
“The Roisin itself isn’t a gay venue so we get an amazing mix of people at shows,” he adds. “That’s where I can see drag going in the next few years as the gay bars continue to close down. I can see drag taking on a more mainstream vibe with groups of like-minded people from all walks of life gathered together to appreciate the art of drag regardless of sexual orientation.”
Similarly, Bradley Brock first came across drag in Galway as a teenager.
“It amazed me seeing this whole different character brought to life,” he remembers. “The sass, the glamour and the humour of it all just drew me in.”
The 22-year-old is based in Ballina, Co Mayo. He has been doing drag for the past six years and now performs as Neon Love.
“I started off like most baby drag queens and with a different name,” he explains. “But the more you do it you may feel the name just isn’t right which is what happened with me.”
He decided to rename his character Neon Love. Love was his original second name and he chose Neon in honour of the UK singer-songwriter Neon Hitch.
Brock explains that Hitch was raised in a family of circus performers and says he admired her “free-spirited character” as well as her fondness for wading through second-hand shops for props and costumes. He says this practice reminded him of when drag queens used to trawl thrift shops to find material to make their own gowns.
“Hence why I chose Neon. I thought it was fitting for me.”
A few months ago, Brock and Neon Love were featured in the RTE 2 series Alison Spittle’s Culchie Club. Brock had no inkling as to whether his local community would embrace Neon Love, but was pleasantly surprised by the warm response the programme elicited.
“After that aired I received lovely feedback from my community which I honestly wasn’t even expecting,” he says. “It’s great to see a rural area being so open after growing up here. My younger years terrified me but this feedback has proven my fears were just monsters under the bed. People were so accepting of me.”
Brock now regularly performs as Neon Love at shows like The Dirty Circus and Taboo.
He says that things have improved for rural drag performers in recent years, pointing to the number of smaller towns and cities with their own Pride festivals and LGBTQ nights. (Indeed, Brock’s native Mayo will host its second annual Mayo Pride next month.)
He says that there are now a network of performers from drag, burlesque and more in his region, who keep in contact after they meet.
“It’s great to be a part of that community and see each other at different venues and places,” he says.
He says that while there may not be quite as many exclusively dedicated LGBTQ venues in the West, there are still plenty of opportunities for queens to perform such is the popularity of drag.
“Nowadays queens don’t only perform on LGBTQ scenes. They perform at burlesque show, pole shows, festivals. Even events for businesses opening and products being released. It’s very mainstream in recent years.”
“It’s a hard scene to get into but once you get your stage and a platform to start you just need to keep going and work hard.”
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I have to say fair play to Mary Lou. I hope this is a further step in building better relations with our British neighbours across the water
@Sean Treacy: It’s help if the current leaders of the neighbours across the water were reasonable and genuine… But truth be told the Torys have obliterated the relationship on an official level.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: it’d*
@Sean Treacy: I agree, and for once I can’t disagree with her, it’s a great gesture
@Sean Treacy: agreed, FairPlay ML. If we are ever to have a border poll these gestures need to be more frequent and meaningful.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: TYR!!TS
@Sean Treacy: somehow I feel it has more to do with building better relations with our neighbours on this side of the water!
@Angela McCarthy: It’s neither, just pretending they are grown ups with shallow, meaningless utterances. Earlier in the week, her party put out another celebration of killers getting killed (this time a guy kidnapping a dog warden). Anyone who thinks this is anything but a front to unionists that SF are somehow tolerant is going to be sorely mistaking.
@Jaime: You don’t seem like you have an axe to grind at all. They’re the most popular party in the country. Time you swallowed that
@Jaime: but I’m sure her gesture to the queen of England will more than compensate for the killing of Mountbatten.
@Sean Treacy: Agree. Well done Mary lou
@John Mulligan: ye john. Lets not forget jimmy saville and Epsteine too
@John Mulligan: Monuntbatten the Paedophile!
Well bridges have to be built, no better person to do that other than Mary Lou McDonald.
@Declan Carr: Agreed 100% It’s great to see Mary Lou doing this, mind you I seem to remember Martin McGuinness shaking the Queen’s hand a number of years ago so this mightn’t be as groundbreaking as some excitable posters might have us believe.
@Declan Carr: Well Boris wants to build a bridge and a tunnel – to Scotland. he’s currently digging his way out of no 10,
@Declan Carr: Do you do stand-up comedy as well Declan, or is it just written satire?
@Justin Gillespie: Nothing wrong with your memory, Martin did shake hands with the Queen. I didn’t mention him, this is all about Mary Lou today.
@Angela McCarthy: I don’t think Boris will ever get the chance to build an orange bridge.
@Eoin Roche: scarlet for you
@Declan Carr: really!!
This is the leadership we need. Fair play to Mary Lou.
@padar: the leadership we need? Really?
@Disco Inferno:probably better than the leadership we have at the moment. So yeah. Really!!!!
@Paul Gorry: nah she is not the leadership we need at all. The leadership we currently have is far superior to this failed Fianna Fáil member.
@Frankie J: I thought all FF’ers were failures?
@Angela McCarthy: hardly, they’re still in government despite the apparent own goal shinners have.
Hard to have anything but respect for this particular queen of England, dropped into presiding over a dying empire aged 25 and just kept on rolling… I just hope she writes a biography before she snuffs it, you just know her thoughts on Boris and some other PMs are going to be absolute gold!
@Nameo Maximus: could not care less
@Philip foster: why comment on it then?, move on to the next article that interests you.
@Paul Gorry: are you a royalist?
@Philip foster: “could not care less”
If that was true you wouldn’t have responded.
@Nameo Maximus: She is not permitted to make political statements and it’s highly unlikely she would publish her thoughts on individual politicians she’s dealt with in her time. What I would like to see is an apology from her for what her government and armed forces did and continue to do to Irish people in their own country. Not “things could have been done differently”. Her country is responsible for millions of Irish deaths and must formally apologise before the world for its myriad war crimes in Ireland. Surely, we should work at repairing the relationship with England, but not to the point of obsequious subservience. We Irish are every bit as good as the British. I would argue that in many ways we are better, as neither Ireland nor its people ended the lives of over 200 million people [which Britain did during its empire period], simply to enrich the British capitalist élite. The old saying that “a fool is the Irish person who trusts the British” is as apt today as ever it was.
Mary Lou is the queen bee. Fair play mary.
now that’s progress
Wee Jeffrey and Sammy Wilson what you going to say now or will you just stop walking the Queens Highway.
@Joe Johnson: How is Jeffrey and the No – No’s going to respond to this with an election looming? Very loud silence I’d say.
Saint Mary Lou McDonald. Give me a break.
@Andy Dillon: And who was the person who called her ‘Saint Mary Lou’ Andy?
@Andy Dillon: she’ll be getting nominated for the Nobel Peace PriZe next !!
@ Justin Gillespie,
It’s pretty obvious from most of your comments where your loyalties (lie) ,keep up cheerleading for every political opponent of the Shinners.
Hopefully all your children can buy a home for themselves someday and hopefully you never get ill and have to depend on social welfare and in fairness what Mary Lou said was very generous especially to people who lived during the so called (troubles)in Ulster and indeed on the island.
@Paul Mc: Mary Lou for Taosieach 1
@Paul Mc: The hatred is strong in this one.
@Paul Mc: No pleasing some people, I commended Mary Lou for what she did and still the moaners moan.
I make no secret of the fact that I am not a Shinner, I am not alone in that just as there are loads of people who are.
I don’t slavishly support any political party and would be the first to say that the present governments record in housing and health is brutal.
I just don’t think a SF government would be any better in fact I think it would be calamitous for the country.
I may well be wrong, I suspect we will find out soon.
@David Corrigan: Indeed the hatred is high here. You can tell Mary Lou has hit a cord and done something right here, to bring them all out of woodwork. ha Ha
You can picture their faces upon reading the headline first. A few burst blood vessels and smashed keyboards. lol
She’s laying the ground work for when she is Taoiseach. Smart move Lou Lou.
Good gesture.
Well done Mary Lou
The leader of a so-called republican party praises a hereditary monarch and we think it’s a good thing?
Her lifetime of service consists of cutting ribbons, handing out awards, and being waited on hand and foot at one of her many palaces. Good grief!
@Lesidees: go and read a bit she’s done so much more . Ignorance is bliss
Why care about anything British
@Philip foster: Because we have too Philip.
@Paul Gorry: “to”
Definitely one of the best Monarchs they ever had, and they’ve had some doozies. Elizabeth the first, Henry the Eighth, Victoria. They’ve had a fair few nutters in their time alright.
Well done MLMcD. Take the high road.
But isn’t it strange how the name Bunting is so hunish??
She must be looking for a knighthood
Step forward Dame Mary
Eeh …..careful with that sword Lizzie.
have your say