Loughlin Deegan’s post “I Knew”

Loughlin is the DIrector of The Lir and a former Director of Dublin Theatre Festival. His post this evening on Facebook has moved me to tears. I am sharing it again here, with his permission. I will elaborate more on my feelings about this in a blog post later on. I am currently working with women on telling their stories. 

“Like everybody else in Irish theatre I have been following closely the coverage in recent days in response to the statement on sexual harassment from the largest funded organisations and Grace Dyas’s remarkably courageous blog post (for what it’s worth, I believe every word Grace). And, like many others, the revelations of the past few days have brought back unhappy memories and made me question, yet again, my own failings in response to the sexual harassment that I witnessed and experienced. There is lots I could say, and I’ll be happy to do so in time if it would be of help to anybody considering speaking out, but what I want to say now is how disappointed I am with the media coverage to date in the Irish Times and Sunday Independent in particular, where two men working in the theatre were asked if they were aware that we had a problem in terms of sexual harassment and both said they were not (I’m aware that Willie White has corrected the record on Facebook and confirmed that he was misquoted). Well, as a man working in Irish theatre I’d like to say loud and clear that I was aware. I witnessed many instances of sexual harassment and bullying. I was in a position of influence and could have done more. But I too was being bullied, including homophobic bullying, and I too was afraid. I knew even than, however, that this wasn’t good enough - I was the boss and was in a much better position than other staff members to protect themselves. So the least I can do now is admit that I knew it was happening. And I’m now going to ask other men in Irish theatre to simply state that they did too. #IKnew #MeToo”