A GAY OLD TOWN

MY IDEAL night out would be to go out with my father, Harry, to the Dawson Lounge, around 1950. He wold have been my age then, and was still single. Dad used to go there because he had a radio repair shop across the road, and after a hard day's work would pop in to unwind. It was a haven for the wild writers' set, and many creative and unhappy souls used to numb the pain there. But on the second floor, (it covered three floors then) he found an oasis of calm, with a regular clientele of gentle, quiet men. It took a while before it dawned on him that they were gay. They were discreet practically to the point of invisibility, but they were made welcome by the barman, Simon. He was later to move over (with his customers) to the Bailey, which to this day still keeps its veneer of discretion.

I was talking once to someone who used to drink there upstairs, who worked at the Gate Theatre, when it and the Abbey Theatre were known in the acting business as "Sodom and Begorrah". He remembered my Dad of that time as an "elegant little man", and then assured me with a smile - having seen the surprise on my face that he should remember him - that "I had nothing to worry about there".

What's hidden about Dublin is the history of the lives of its gay men and women. We didn't mushroom out of the bog as soon as Dev was buried, we have always been here. But so many were married, leading double lives, that the truth about our history cannot decently be told. It is too small a city for that. But if those walls could talk . . .

After having spent the summer's evening, 1950, with my Dad, I would go walking through the city, my favourite nocturnal activity; seeing if the same places were magnets for lonely souls as they are now. Probably more so, I suppose. But I would like to find out for myself, and cheer some man up with the news that some day, in this same Dublin, his secrecy could be redundant. It would, sadly, take half a century, but some day, he could be drinking in the George, arm in arm with his lover, watching Dubliners go by; and not having to fear.

• Dermot Moore