Hazy Rainbow to coordinate regular social events for Longford's LGBTQ+ community

Last week statistics were released showing that 31 pubs have closed in Longford since 2005. The numbers speak of a changing social landscape where people's interaction opportunities have shifted to different locations.

Hazy Rainbow is Longford's LGBTQ+ collective who have come up with a plan to organise a get together that is new, but also very traditional. Inspired by the massive success of Longford’s very first Pride celebration earlier this year Hazy Rainbow will coordinate regular social events for the community, in and around the town.

Starting from September, the first Tuesday of every month will be TuesGays, where a series of casual social activities and fun meet ups will be organised by Hazy Rainbow for the local LGBTQ+ and allies to have fun and get to know each other better.

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“We had a few drinks after the Pride Parade during the summer and realised there was an appetite for some sort of social gathering there. There's a community here looking for things to do together,” Gemma Cooney, one of the organisers, told the Longford Leader.

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Their first event will be “However You Roll” , a boardgame night, which took place on Tuesday, September 3 in the Longford Arms Hotel, from 7pm to 10pm.

This is an “easygoing event for anyone who wants to play, learn to play, or even just to hang out with a tea or coffee”.

Gemma says the initiative is to fill a gap in the social options: “There's a lot of stuff for the under-18s, young people finding their feet. It's great that there's support for things like that, but we wanted something a bit more casual, an excuse to head out into town and meet up with each other again.

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“When we got together for the Pride Parade we had a great time, it definitely exceeded all our expectations. We realised we can make something of this, a regular meet up.”

For Gemma Hazy Rainbow is about building social bridges: “It's a bit of a cliché, but if you are LGBTQ+ and come from the Midlands, you have to hop on the bus or the train and head out to one of the big cities on the coast, either going to Dublin or Galway.

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“We'd like to support something within the community, supporting our local town, because they supported us so brilliantly. We'd love to give back a little bit and kind of, selfishly, not have to travel too far.”

There will be a wide selection of games for all levels of skill and seriousness - from Pandemic and Catan to Guess Who and Hungry Hungry Hippos - provided, but participants can bring their own.

“Board games are great, because when they have something to kind of concentrate on, something to do with their hands, they feel a bit less kind of awkward and they're a bit more social. Everybody loves arguing over Hungry, Hungry Hippos,” Gemma laughed.

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Starting out with any new venture can be challenging, but the organiser says the momentum of the Pride Parade made things less complicated: “It was relatively easy for us to get up and running. Once you start talking about organising an event like this you realise there's nothing actually stopping you from doing it. We're all big giant nerds with board games at home, so we kind of pooled our games together and figured out where we could go and do it in a social setting.

“I think since COVID a lot of social initiatives that existed before died off. This is a great town for innovative events, there's lots of people, and there's always somewhere you can start something like this. We have Connolly Barracks, there's always something on there, particularly for kids, like the Dead of Night Festival, Longford Lights festival.”

With a name like TuesGays it's clear that the evening is aimed at members of the LGBTQ+ community. Gemma hopes people will appreciated that it is open to everyone: “It is geared towards LGBTQ people, obviously if there's any kind of allies or anybody who'd like to get involved, they're more than welcome, but the idea is to give us a bit of a focus point to meet each other. To pick up where Pride left off, to come together and engage with each other.”

For more information on future TuesGays events, or to get involved, get in touch at info@longfordpride.ie

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