A Boycott, a Strike and Adele - The Continuing Story of Chambers

by News Editor Cormac McCarthy

It has been a very tumultuous few weeks in Cork city arising from the news that popular LGBTQ+ pub Chambers had made the decision to briefly rebrand as Sinners for Freshers’ Week, effectively removing all evidence of LGBTQ+ paraphernalia. Drag shows were cancelled without prior notice give to performers and all events were cancelled to make way for incoming first year college students.

Popular drag performer Kyrstal Queer expressed her own disgust at the actions taken in an interview with the University Express here. (https://www.uccuniversityexpress.com/blog/were-disgusted-at-the-disdain-theyve-shown-to-the-cork-community-corks-lgbt-community-organise-protest-of-chambers-pub)

In response to this news, a boycott was organised on the courthouse steps outside of chambers on the 14th of September. Hundreds of protesters from the Cork’s queer community and beyond came out in the rain in opposition to what they considered to be a serious mistreatment of Cork’s queer community. Shouts of “We’re here to stay, you can’t paint the gay away.” One of the attendees and former UCC student Tom Murphy said that it was “A clear sign of how there are always strength in numbers and all of us are showing just exactly how we feel to an institution that has not considered the community for one moment.”

The student’s union of UCC and MTU both expressed their support for the protest by organising walks to the courthouse on the night. Both unions have taken efforts subsequently to organise LGBTQ+ friendly events as part of the boycott.

Mick Barry TD of the socialist party was one of the attendees at the protest. He described it as “A fabulous protest, a really noisy, colourful protest from the gay community in the city and their supporters. They are protesting Chambers putting profit before the interest of the gay community, thinking that they can take money off the gay community for 51 weeks in the year and then on the 52nd week, turf people out, take down the rainbow banners, and tell the drag performers that they can come back in a few weeks’ time. They think they can get bigger profits by opening their doors to other sections of society during Freshers’ week. The community is not going to stand for it, and we need safe spaces for the queer community in the city.”

A townhall meeting was organised for Friday the 22nd at Gay Project on Sawmill Street. The aim of which was to comprehensively voice all concerns and expectations moving forward. Topics for discussion included what a safe space looked like, what responsibilities a “safe space” venues have towards the community as a whole and how the community can work with these venues to create such safe space. The aim was to come up with solutions that “will create a lasting change and that will protect our community and provide a safe, respectful and successful space for queers in Cork.”

The local community have all rallied to raise support for performers who found themselves without work. With many of Chambers’ regular drag performers still upholding a boycott, venues such as the Pavilion and The Oyster Tavern have stepped in as willing alternatives for hosting drag nights and other LGBTQ+ friendly events. Krystal Queer, Cynthia Doll and many other drag performers have now started a regular Sunday night show in The Pavilion free of entry.

All around Cork, numerous LGBTQ+ inclusive events and clubs have provided themselves as a means of socialising and strengthening the community. Local promoter Instinct Cork have organised regular social events such as bottomless brunch and bingo nights in a variety of venues. Frontrunners Cork, an Irish LGBTQIA+ inclusive running group have actively encouraged local members of the community to take part through weekly walking/running groups on Monday evenings in Kenedy Park and Saturday mornings in Marina. Cork racketeers, a LGBTQ+ badminton club have also actively encouraged members to join as a way of socialising and meeting other members of the community. All groups have expressed their thanks for the overwhelming interest they have recently received.

With no response from the Reardens group for a period over two weeks, management finally issued a statement via social media on the 30th of September.

The statement read: “Margaret here, I want to apologise for the upset caused by our actions during Freshers’ week. My team in Chambers always try to offer the best service and a safe space to all our customers but I failed this time. I got it wrong. It was never my intention to alienate anybody. I realise I offended and upset many of our loyal and regular customers and I am very sorry.

I should have handled this better. We are all aware of what happened and I have learnt from it and I will take extra care in the future. As an additional apology, we are running a weekend-long promotion in Chambers for all our customers. While I know it can't exactly make up for the hurt I caused, I hope it'll go some way towards making amends, Margaret."

The statement was delivered on Instagram accompanied by the song “Hello” by Adele playing over the message.

There has still been no direct apology to the drag performers.