God, Gospel, and The Garda

Illustration: Sydney Hanson

My Gran, Gospel, and The Garda. Three staples of a childhood spent in rural Ireland. The Garda being the Irish police, who frequented my gran’s church, I would argue mostly for the free biscuits.

I will never forget how dismayed my Irish Catholic Grandmother was the first time we discussed religion – she had produced an atheist. Maybe it was the water in Scotland, most likely it was my Queerness. This came despite her best efforts: the Sunday Schools, afternoons with the priest, and hymns I had practised.She claimed I was a byproduct of my mother. A woman who never baptised me, informed me of the body of Christ or argued with me when I wondered how on earth Jesus fit so many fishes in his pockets.

Time and time again I would embarrass my Gran with my lack of knowledge of correct hymns to sing or bible verses to recite were. Rural Ireland does not tend to take too kindly to that gap in cultural education. She attempted to bribe me, often offering a new dress, horse rides, and sweets in exchange for my time in the church. She would take me every Sunday and parade around her Scottish granddaughter who knew more dinosaurs than hymns. My Gran’s friends would tell me during my visits how I would grow up in the Grace of God, with a lucky husband and gorgeous children. That’s something that is definitely not on my agenda.

Growing up queer was confusing at the best of times, particularly in the Scottish Highlands. With more livestock than people, it’s often difficult to find a community who understands you or can relate to the struggle. As a child this confusion outcasts and baffles you. I was only able to find comfort in my sexual identity in my late teens as I moved away from the underlying homophobia of my rural life. I moved to a bigger and much more accepting city, Glasgow, my university city: which has been a vehicle for my self-acceptance. Being Queer was something I denied for most of my life. Upon reflection, I don’t think I fully understood my sexuality fully until I was older. To this day, a part of my life that my grandmother still does not know about.

The church has now become a point of contention with my Gran, as a couple of years ago I told her I would no longer be attending mass with her whenever I visited. She still cannot understand why when I tell her my values no longer align with those of her church. Its ingrained,passive homophobia was something I could longer tolerate. It has, however, created a gap between myself and my Gran – we both miss the time we used to spend together on those Sundays. In spite of that, I couldn’t shake the liberation I got from stopping my visits to church. The new time I had I was able to spend exploring being who I am now. I read, I tried new things with my brother and family. My gran tried everything to reinstate our church trips but nothing managed to quite outweigh newfound liberation in my detachment from the church life.

I understand the time I have left with my grandmother is fleeting, and I understand I could have ignored the comments for longer. But the constant slights and attacks on my community were too often and too casual for me to stand idly by anymore. Ridding myself of the strain of correcting churchgoers’ slurs whilst pretending to be someone I wasn’t was crucial to my self-development in my teens. I became more accepting and even proud of my Queerness. It was no longer something I denied or hid, I was able to explore it and I found a community to support me in Glasgow. Though my new sense of identity was something that took me a while to accept, eliminating the weight of the church was definitely a start.

Growing up in a country where Christianity is at the heart of everything such as Scotland or Ireland becomes a burden as a Queer person. We are taught to mask, hide, and negate any feelings or actions that concern Queerness. Cultural identity is something so valuable, however in the modern day Celtic countries, there is a necessary shift away from ingrained cultural homophobia to allow Queer people to exist freely. I grew up to be many things: a proud half-Scottish, half-Irish woman, but also a proud Queer woman. Whilst this forced me to sacrifice and strain relationships in my life, I would not have chosen to grow up any other way. The opportunities I have had to find to explore who I am undoubtedly stemmed from the catalytic event of my religious rejection.