Joni Crone

Playwright / Gay Rights Activist

TW: Homophobia

In February 1980, 26-year-old Joni Crone walked onto the set of The Late Late Show and announced to the nation that she was a lesbian, making her the first gay woman to come out publicly on Irish television. Another 13 years would pass before homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland and 35 years before gay marriage was legalised.

“I was determined to make the most of this chance to speak up for lesbians and gays in Ireland who had been forced to lead secret lives in shame for too long. I wanted to […] talk about the movement to give other gay people the courage to come out.”

A year prior to this, Joni was supposed to have appeared in an interview on The Live Mike Show, a short-lived comedy, variety, and chat show on RTÉ, however the production team had ‘got nervous about having a lesbian on the show and decided to drop the interview.’ And even though she had done other radio interviews, walking onto the set of the Late Late – which had an estimated one million viewers at the time - was ‘stomach churning’ for her; and before the night was out, her relatives, co-workers and neighbours would all know that she was a lesbian. She thought at one point she might faint, but ‘a sympathetic member of the Late Late Show team’ gave her a double vodka and told her she would be ‘grand’ and to ‘just look Gay [Byrne] in the eye and forget about everything else.’ What followed was a 23-minute ‘public interrogation’ in which she was at one point asked if her parents thought of her as ‘mentally deficient, or sinful or culpably ignorant.’ (When asked about this years later, Joni maintained that despite the interrogation, she felt that ‘Gay was on my side’ and that he only asked what viewers at home were asking).

“[Gay Byrne] mirrored the ignorance and prejudice that existed at the time. I felt subjected to a public interrogation and tried to hold my head up while I endured a kind of mental torture.”

Explaining why she felt compelled to come out, Joni said that ‘I lived in Ireland in total ignorance of homosexuality, particularly female.’ Gay women have never been treated like a joke, she told him, because they’re not even recognised in the first place.

“In a way you never stop coming out. Every new work environment I go into I have to come out again because people assume you are straight unless you tell them otherwise.”

Joni had agreed to appear on the show to talk about the Dublin Lesbian Line, a confidential support helpline she hoped would help others like her, should they need it. She was a volunteer with them and had spent hours on the phone with women who were struggling with their identity or who felt that they had no one else to turn to. When she was a teenager herself, Joni had never had access to any information on homosexuality, and it wasn’t until she moved to London that she met other lesbians ‘in the flesh.’ She wanted to give out the helpline phone number on the show to give people the information and support she didn’t have then, but in the end, she wasn’t given the chance.

*Joni speaking at Pride, 1983.*
*Photo credit: Kieran Rose*

Following on from her appearance, Joni ‘suffered rejection from family, received threats of violence and experienced ostracism.’ Walking down Camden Street in Dublin one day, a trader ‘spat at her feet saying, “I would not serve the like of that”.’ RTÉ too received complaints over the segment, with one caller stating: ‘I do not pay a licence fee to see that filthy person.’ For a time, Joni considered leaving the country, but there was a bright side to it all too, and ‘twenty years later people were still coming up to [Joni] and saying: “Excuse me, are you Joni? You saved my life” or “You saved my daughter or my son’s life” and thanking [her] for taking a stand.’

Joni went on to study drama and became a Community Arts Worker before qualifying in psychodrama psychotherapy and later in equality studies. Throughout the 90s she was a successful scriptwriter for Fair City and since then, a writer of ten plays. Her most recent play, Anna Livia Lesbia, was written in the wake of the 2015 Marriage Equality referendum while she was writer in residence in Leitrim.

“Attitudes have changed so much thankfully. It’s great now to have the marriage referendum and it’s great to have a gay Taoiseach but I’m trying to say in this play that this didn’t happen overnight, that there’s a long history here. I’m only trying to tell a small part of it and I’m trying to encourage others to tell their story as well.”

The play is about coming out in the 70s and 80s and is semi-autobiographical as well as referring to some of the stories she heard while working on the helpline.

In 2017 – a year after she married her partner, Mary – the play toured Dublin, Sligo, Mayo, Longford, and Galway.

Herstory by Katelyn Hanna, 2022.

Want to read about historical LGBTQ+ women? See our photo essay here.

Sources:

The Irish Times, 5 June 2017, online at: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/being-gay-she-was-asked-if-her-parents-thought-she-was-mentally-deficient-1.3102931 [accessed 30 Mar. 2022].

Dublin Lesbian Line, online at: http://www.dublinlesbianline.ie/ [accessed 30 Mar. 2022].

Lynch, Edmund, ‘Joni’s bravery is highlighted further, given the negative reaction to her appearance on the Late Late Show,’ in GCN (Issue 331), online at: https://magazine.gcn.ie/articles/150863?article=72-1 [accessed 30 Mar. 2022].

‘Playwright Joni Crone: "It's great now to have the marriage referendum and it's great to have a gay,’ on RTÉ Radio 1, online at: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/stories/1220056-joni-crone-marriage-referendum/ [accessed 30 Mar. 2022].

Crone, Joni, ‘Coming out on the Late Late: 'Gay mirrored the prejudice that existed at the time,’ online at: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/coming-out-on-the-late-late-gay-mirrored-the-prejudice-that-existed-at-the-time-3448330-Jun2017/ [accessed 30 Mar. 2022].