Trailblazer Joni brings a dramatic past to life in Anna Livia Lesbia

Joni Crone is a woman of courage and conviction. In fact, she’s a hero, although the author of the semi-autographical play, Anna Livia Lesbia, might reject that label.

But you can judge for yourself when Anna Livia Lesbia is staged at the Town Hall Theatre next Friday, July 7, in a production from Leitrim’s Splódar Theatre.

For a decade, in the 1970s, Joni who was born in Dublin and now lives in Leitrim, was one of a “half-dozen people who kept things going” for Ireland’s gays and lesbians when the country was more oppressed than it is now. There was no marriage equality; worse, there was little tolerance as people who were gay either hid their sexuality or emigrated.

In Dublin, Joni and a group of like-minded people including David Norris, ran a phoneline, a disco, outings and poetry readings, to show people they could lead a normal life and didn’t have to be stuck in dingy bars.

When she was invited on to The Late Late in 1980 to discuss the group’s work, Joni accepted, albeit with fear.  “I was a great opportunity to promote the phoneline, but terrifying at the same time”.

The programme’s researcher advised Joni that Gay Byrne would ask a few personal questions first, to put things in context, but Joni didn’t expect what came.

She was used to discussing the phoneline, having previously done interviews with the likes of Pat Kenny and Marian Finucane. She was involved in trade unionism in Aer Lingus where she worked, and expected a few queries about work and her personal life – but the whole interview went personal. Gay Byrne asked if her parents saw her as deviant or sinful and queried if being gay would affect her chance of promotion at work. And he wondered what the clergy thought.

With lots of hindsight, Joni realises Gay Byrne did the support group a favour. His approach humanised her and helped people connect with her.  But it didn’t seem that way at the time.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.