We Are Fam-Ma-Lee: Gay Pride Day, Dublin

I might have forgotten the Gay Pride march if my wife hadn't reminded me that I mentioned wanting to photograph it about a week ago. After a family lunch in Eddie Rockets I zoomed into town and found a parking place on Denmark Street, right next to the crowd gathering on Parnell Square. The cacophony hit me as soon as I stepped out of the car: whistles, drums, megaphones, a dense milling of costumes and voices. The weather was wonderful and everyone seemed to be grinning. Glittery streamers, balloons, bubbles, masks, drag-wear, loads of police (both real and pantomime), butterfly wings, sailors' outfits and hats, hats, hats of every description, from the flamboyant ladies' variety to glittery pink stetsons and bikers' and sailors' caps: a peacock convergence of Ascot, a vast children's party, a fluffed-up Saint Paddy's Day and a military rally. I recognised a woman, C, a cousin I'm very fond of. She was wearing a hi-vis vest, one of the organisers. We threw our arms round each other, theatricality being the order of the day.

I took the above shot around this time, before the march got under way. It's partly a homage to Elliott Erwitt (though unlike his black and white images, this called for colour, big time).

I had not really intended to follow the march all the way up O'Connell St. and across to College Green, but I got caught up in the energy and over-brimming, good-willed assertiveness that drew only cheers and clapping from the crowds that lined the roads. Something moving about it too, the anthem We Are Fam-il-ly... belted out from an artc lorry set my feet moving. It's that old yearning; that this is how life should be, without doors between races, genders or sexual identities (a world without the need for Gay Pride marches, in which each family is freed from the war zones that blight so many families), a street disco where everyone smiles and invites you to party with them: oh yeah.