This event is part of Flikkers – Come As You Were, the Age & Opportunity Bealtaine Festival Commission for 2022 supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council. This is a series of events remembering and celebrating the Flikkers Disco era at the Hirschfeld Centre and the generation who were there. Flikkers invites older LGBTQ+ people to dance and celebrate this seminal period of social and cultural activism.

This live performance and club event presented at the Basement, The Church in Mary’s Street will be a tribute to the 1970s and 80s Dublin dance scene, inviting older LGTBQIA+ people to a celebration with DJs and artists from that seminal Hirschfeld Centre era.

With performers to include Brendan O’Byrne, Tonie Walsh; Winnie Coakley and Gerry Moore (DJs) plus special appearances by The Wild Geeze and Paddy Fagan. We aim to celebrate the culture and activism of this period. ‘Flikkers: The Flashback Ball’ will also remember those lost to HIV/AIDS in those decades. Like all discos, The Flashback Ball would not be complete without a slow set.

Winnie Coakley a working class hero from the eighties who is courageous, beautiful and kind. An activist, DJ.

'We were a small minority of gay people who were ducking and diving and marginalised we were carrying alot of shame, guilt and remorse we were so programmed into not being able to Express who we are and now we can celebrate our sexuality. How we have moved on so quick, and back there music got us through the good and bad times, music was the food of love.'

Gerry Moore, veteran DJ has been entertaining the LGBTQ+ community and beyond, over 30 years, starting in the Hirschfeld Centre youth group, in 1985, then becoming one of most in demand Irish DJs, with a special blend of pop house and disco , seamlessly mixed :)