Flikkers: Subversive Signs

Thursday May 12, 1.15 – 2.15pm

Journalist, activist and former Flikkers DJ Tonie Walsh in conversation with Brendan Maher

A Bealtaine Festival event presented in association with Gallery of Photography Ireland

As part of this year’s Bealtine Festival organised by Age & Opportunity, Gallery of Photography Ireland is delighted to present journalist, activist and former Flikkers DJ Tonie Walsh, in conversation with Brendan Maher, researcher and curator of the LGBTQ+ strand of PROTEST! This exhibition at Gallery of Photography Ireland looks at the vital role photography has played in recording and making visible the struggle for equality, diversity and inclusion in Ireland. Drawing on Tonie’s cherished and rare vinyl collection, the Subversive Signs talk will address the coded language and visuals of album artwork and club flyers from the 1980’s queer music scene.

Admission is free but a booking is required. Please use the link below to secure a place:

This event is part of Flikkers – Come As You Were, the Age & Opportunity Bealtaine Festival Commission for 2022 supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council. A series of events remembering and celebrating the Flikkers Disco era at the Hirschfeld Centre and the generation who were there. Flikkers invites older LGBTQ+ people to dance and celebrate this seminal period of social and cultural activism.

Curated & produced by artist-curator Francis Fay and journalist, activist and DJ Tonie Walsh

Project Advisors: Tonie Walsh & Julianne O’Malley

Curatorial Support: Monica Flynn (Visual Art Curator, Bealtaine Festival)

Speaker biographies:

Tonie Walsh is a civil rights activist, historian and journalist. In 1985, at the age of 24, Tonie Walsh became the first openly gay person to stand for election to Dublin City Council.  Although unsuccessful, he was compelled to run in the Dáil elections of 1989, under the banner of GLEN (Gay & Lesbian Equality Network), highlighting the unjustness of existing anti-gay legislation. During the 1980s, he was a significant player behind Dublin’s LGBT resource, the Hirschfeld Centre, and worked as a journalist on OUT, Ireland’s first commercial lesbian/gay periodical (1984-1988). He was the founding editor of GCN, Ireland’s most successful queer publication. Using earlier archive collections, he launched the Irish Queer Archive in 1997, later transferred to state ownership at the National Library of Ireland. A former president of the National LGBT Federation, Walsh was grand marshal of the Dublin LGBT Pride parade in 2008. A longtime advocate for safer sex and improved sexual health strategies, Walsh became HIV Positive in 2005. He has been an outspoken critic of Government inertia around new HIV and STI infections, and for a time served as a board member of Gay Health Network. On World AIDS Day 2016, he launched a campaign to build an Irish AIDS Memorial. After almost a decade working as a full-time carer, Tonie Walsh returned to public life with I Am Tonie Walsh. A meditation on friendship, family and community, the one-man show, produced by critically acclaimed Thisispopbaby, premiered at Dublin’s Project Arts Centre in November 2018. Throughout 2021, he co-curated a cultural programme with the National Library of Ireland as part of Living With Pride, its exhibition of Christopher Robson photographs. Walsh currently divides his time between Turkey and Ireland, busying himself with several other research and writing projects.

Banner image courtesy of Tonie Walsh personal archive.

Gallery information

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Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm

Open Mondays by appointment for ongoing education, artists archiving and training.

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Closed for bank holidays and public holidays

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Dublin D02 X406, Ireland