I grew up in Churchtown in Dublin, and went to an all-boys school there for a couple of years, which I hated.
Back then, homophobia was the currency. Everything revolved around it. I wasn’t able to hide my gayness, so I stuck out like a sore thumb and was bullied relentlessly for three years.
Those years were really blurry and dark; there’s not a lot that I can remember. But then my parents gave me a second chance, and I was sent to boarding school in Westmeath, Wilson’s Hospital. I really opened up there.
Every school should be mixed. It diffuses a lot of things in both sexes that are, maybe, problematic. Also, as a young gay, I needed my girls.
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I remember the car journey down there in my dad’s van and thinking to myself, “just come out, come out”. My family already knew, so I decided that if someone asked me, I was just going to be honest. I remember going into the dorms and this guy goes, “are you gay?” and I was like, “yeah”. And that was it.
I remember being judgemental of people who weren’t from Dublin before going, imagining pitchforks and signs saying “get the gay out”, but they couldn’t have been more welcoming.
You can see that with the whole Enoch Burke thing at Wilson’s [Hospital]. The school dealt with that amazingly, even though they could have bowed down to the pressure of evangelical types.
I came back to Dublin at 18 and started going out a lot. I found my tribe through clubbing; all my best friends that I’m still friends with today, we found each other on various dance floors around Dublin.
I got a job in a PR company called Thinkhouse when I was 22, despite an atrocious Leaving Certificate.
A year ago, my boyfriend William and I moved from Phibsboro to Kilkenny. We’ve been together 11 years. We met on Grindr, but didn’t get the chance to meet in person for three months. He was in art college in Limerick, and I was working in Dublin. We kept chatting, and I just invited him to a New Year’s Eve party I was throwing. When he said yes, I thought he was a freak. Why didn’t he have plans? But when he came, we got on immediately.
I’d had boyfriends before that, but they were never a good match. But with him, it was immediate.
We have a food brand together, Currabinny, named after the place in west Cork where he grew up. From spending so much time down there, I started to fall in love with the idea of living in the countryside. I loved the country air, and I’d had such a good time at Wilson’s, so that probably planted a seed. I remember saying to William, maybe three years ago, would we move down the country? And the idea stuck.
I really miss Deliveroo, I’m not going to lie. You have to drive to the chipper if you want a takeaway here. But when I weigh up what I’ve lost versus what I’ve gained, there’s no comparison. In Phibsboro, we had a stoop with two steps where we used to grow some herbs. We’ve now just under an acre with a polytunnel, we’re getting hens, and this weekend I’ve 45 friends coming over for a party. I have the room for a party.
[ James Kavanagh and William Murray: Turning personal story into a cookbookOpens in new window ]
I’m obsessed with Ireland. I love that there’s always somewhere new to discover. We were just in Cahersiveen, and went out to the Skelligs, and I just kept seeing butterflies.
My favourite place has to be where I live now. One of our neighbours said recently that we’re in the middle of nowhere, but also the middle of everything, and she’s right. We’re 20 minutes from Kilkenny city, another hour is Dublin, and just under two hours from Cork. Then there are all these beautiful little villages around us, like Borris and Inistioge.
For three or so years, anxiety had me in a chokehold. I remember not being able to leave the house. I used to get panic attacks most nights, and I really thought in those moments that this would never, ever not be my life.
And now, to be on the other side of that, I’m pinching myself. To my mind, anxiety and depression were people sitting in a corner under a blanket, depressed. But for me, anxiety manifested in really bad hypochondria; I was really concerned about my heart stopping. I used to search for the nearest defibrillator everywhere we went, and I was terrified of driving because I was certain my heart would stop. I feel so grateful to be here now, but back then it was really frightening.
I do a bit of work with BelongTo, an amazing youth organisation that helps LGBT+ people. They facilitate this accreditation system every year, where they help schools complete anti-bullying workshops and things like that. It’s a sign of a good school when they have it. From talking to students, there are still murmurings of homophobia out there, but it’s miles better than what it was.
However, there is a rise in transphobia in schools. And all the same stuff that’s being said about transgender people was said about gay men and women 50 years ago; that they shouldn’t be trusted around children, we need to ban books that mention them ... It’s just such an eyeroll. As a white gay man, I am fine. But others aren’t, and that’s important.
As I always say at these events, it’s not the time to pull up the ladder just because you feel liberated. There are still others to look after, and we need to make sure they feel safe too.
In conversation with Kate Demolder. This interview is part of a series speaking to well-known people about their lives and relationship with Ireland, and was edited for clarity and length. Follow James Kavanagh on Instagram at @jamesalankavanagh.
