INSIDE DUBLIN'S OUTHOUSE ON A DAY OF THUNDER

- CEO Oisín O’Reilly on why this place

BY ALLEN MEAGHER

The Community Employment staff and all in Capel Street’s Outhouse provide an exemplary service running one of the most important cafés, not just in Dublin, but nationally. Outhouse is more than just a café. It is also an activists’ base and has a queer library, a theatre venue, meeting rooms and a history that goes back decades.

The project doesn’t just serve greater Dublin’s queer community – and allies – but half or more of Leinster.

Most community centres cater for a few thousand people, while this one caters for a community of over 100,000 people, estimates manager and CEO, Oisín O’Reilly.

“We’re the centre for the greater Dublin area which has a population of about 1.6 million people, so we’re talking about 100,000 to 160,000 queer people who are served by this centre. Pre-pandemic, in 2019, 55,000 people accessed the centreabout one in three queer people in the greater Dublin area.

“So, this is a very alive, vibrant and thriving place,” he said, giving ‘Changing Ireland’ a tour of the building on a day when the thunder and lightning was immense.

The tour begins in the ample basement that is home to Ireland’s only queer theatre (it can be hired by any community group for a very reasonable price). Then up a rainbow painted stairs to the café on the ground floor (the soup is delicious) and up plain wooden stairs towards a beautiful long Georgian window and scaffolding (repairs are imminent after minor water damage when the