Pride Magazine 2025

cleared to allow the simple elegance of the riverbank come back into view, with expensively simple stone and steel and concrete fittings encouraging the people to the water’s edge. My parents brought me for dinner one lovely summer’s evening to the new restaurant just opened in what had been Cissie’s bar in Dunmore. We sat and watched the sun slant into the sea. Here handsome young Waterford men and women, back from Australia or America, had made a simple, elegant seafood bar out of the place, somewhere straight out of Provincetown or Newport, with bleached walls, boards painted a dull blue, a few well chosen ships’ lanterns and delicious food. Underneath, Cissie’s leatherette seats, low plastic wooden tables and red carpets lurk. When I walked past it recently, the Folly Church was much the same, its cement ageing but not particularly well, getting a little brown with damp and looking profoundly of are all lurking somewhere unsuspected under the surface. If I wanted to imagine myself back at the abattoir, all I had to do was open my bin on a sweltering summer’s afternoon and the stench of rotted meat was enough to bring me right back, but its physical presence had disappeared. This new crescent is as it should be: a pleasant city centre enclave for single people, young couples and the retired. Faced with such a sight on a hot July morning, thirty years after I had cycled away from the abattoir, towards university and Dublin, I felt, for the first time, the faintest touch of obliteration on my shoulder. Standing in the sunlight, I thought: if the abattoir could disappear, then so could I. Nothing of you remains in my life now, nothing solid, that is, except your empty jewellery box and the bottle of Lourdes water, kept on my bedside table. I have no pictures of you in my house. I didn’t cry at your funeral. I never dream of you and I don’t think we will meet again. But, if we could, all I would want is an hour again in the dining room in Belgrave, listening, just listening. This will never happen and so nothing of you remains in my life - except everything, of course.

of his coming to terms with his own emerging sexuality as a middle-class Nancy boy (his own description). It is a book about growing up gay, but also about growing up loved. Its power arises not only from the gap between the two, but the connection. Colm Tóibín describes Eibhear’s memoir as being “written with an intense vitality and sense of affection.” In 1997, Eibhear edited “Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing”, a groundbreaking collection of essays showing how the work of Irish lesbian and gay writers personally engaged with the complex socio-political changes taking place in Ireland during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A huge part of Eibhear’s research focused on elevating and appreciating the big names of gay Irish literature. In 2006, he published “Kate O’Brien: A Writing Life” which traces her life from Limerick, to Spain, to America, and to London; he argues that, in fact, Kate O’Brien was a subversive and a pioneer for women’s writing. He was a prolific writer, both of academic and creative works. In 2011, he published “Oscar’s Shadow: Wilde, Homosexuality and Modern Ireland” , which uses Oscar Wilde as the central figure to set the historical context for cultural and legal perceptions of homosexuality in Ireland In 2013, he published “A Different Story: The Writings of Colm Tóibín”. Here, he presents a complete study of Tóibín’s writing life. Eibhear was also a well- known novelist, shortlisted twice for the Dublin Literary Award. In 2019, he published the novel “The Trumpet Shall Sound”. The book covers the story of Handel’s musical career lucidly and entertainingly; its central and innovative focus is the private life, for which read sexual life, of the composer. Eibhear presents him as gay through his relationship with the characters of Luca and Lorenzo. In addition to all of his prodigious publications, Eibhear was the most amazing partner that someone can ever have. “Everyday, I have to remind myself that Eibhear is no longer here on earth with us—everyday, I have a question to ask him, a piece of gossip to share, a draft I want his opinion of, or reminiscence to

recount—but he lives on, always, in my imagination and I am ever grateful for having known him.” -Dr. Heather Corbally Bryant Senior Lecturer, Writing Program Wellesley College Writer CHAPTER 5: THE LAST TIME I SAW CISSIE. CISSIE’S ABATTOIR BY EIBHEAR WALSHE. 2009. THE COLLINS PRESS. “But that’s not true. That’s not the last time I saw you. I see you all the time.” I sometimes wonder what she would make of my life now, happy as it is for me. I have no children; I live alone and spend most of my days reading, writing or teaching, all occupations she would have truly hated. She would have wondered what rogue gene led me away from the real purpose of life, money-making, and towards the dullness of books. But she would recognise her zest for life in much of how I spend my days and nights. Sometimes, late at night, when I go to pubs where men meet each other, my courage can falter and it is the thought of Cissie that gives me courage. Her pluck and her style on the streets of Waterford came from nowhere but herself. No language exists where I could explain to her why I go to those places or to tell why it can be beautiful beyond belief. Still, she would understand the appetite for life, the determination to take my place in the world, and would approve of my spirit if we ever had a chance to talk again, for an hour, in her dining room, full of smoke and the voice of Andy Williams. Cissie has been dead now for well over ten years and I have not been back to her grave once. Her house, ‘Belgrave’ , was sold and cleared out after her death. Now, when I drive past it, I try not to look in, even though it is well cared for. I don’t want to see inside in the same way that I don’t want to see her grave, or any other tangible sign of that unthinkable notion, her absence. Her Waterford has largely gone, now it is a city transformed by money and an unexpected sense of civic confidence into real beauty, the ugly industrial warts along the Suir being gradually

EIBHEAR WALSHE: IN MEMORIAM 1962-2024 By Saul Perez (he/him)

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.” Paul Auster’s opening words in “Winter Journal” reflect the way I felt when the Garda came to our house to tell me that Eibhear had passed away. A lecturer in the School of English at UCC and Director of Creative Writing, Eibhear wrote works of fiction, memoir, literacy criticism and biography. His teaching, research, and writing

commemorated and celebrated the place of LGBT+ people in Ireland’s history and culture. Eibhear had an insatiable appetite for life. He was charming, witty, fun, and never took himself too seriously. Wherever he went, he left a lasting impression. Born in Waterford, he studied in Dublin and arrived in Cork to work in UCC in 1991. As he describes in his “ 10980 Days ” essay included in “ The Cork Words 2 ”, he was twenty-nine years old and, for the first time in his life, he had a full-time job. It was a one-year contract

that would turn into thirty-three years. He was beloved by his students, and colleagues, and made friends all over the world. For three decades, Eibhear fully involved himself in the life of the city. You could often meet him attending a book launch in Waterstones, walking back from a reading in Crawford Art Gallery or enjoying a cheese board at Cask. Not only did Eibhear never hide his homosexuality, he was always proud of it. In 2009, he published his memoir “ Cissie’s Abattoir ”, which tells the story

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