“You want to have good drinks promotions, have fun with your mates and you want the score – that’s pretty much what you go out for.” Photo: Owen Bennett
Interview : Owen Bennett
Words: Leanna Byrne
The story of a Students’ Union Welfare officer becoming a successful club promoter is not one you hear of every day. In fact, it’s completely unheard of. While previous Welfare officers went on to be part of social advocacy networks or to work in social entrepreneurships, Cormac Cashman has transformed gay clubnights in Dublin and has become an urban legend in the process.
Last week Cormac Cashman sat down with UT editor Owen Bennett to discuss how things have changed since first launching PrHomo in April 2009. Although PrHomo was not Cormac’s first club night (he had a brief ‘fling’ with Panty Bar), it is certainly the most successful. From the beginning it took off, taking in numbers of 300 to 400 people a week to Base Bar on Wicklow Street. As we all have witnessed, generally club nights in Dublin have a short lifespan, but PrHomo is set to celebrate its fourth birthday this year in its new home in The George.
For Cormac, the secret to success is simple: good drink deals. “I had been the Chair of the LGBT Society the year before I was Welfare officer. The only gay club night that was there for students was The George on Wednesdays and there wasn’t any drink promotions as such. The Ents officer at the time, Ed O’Riordáin, was doing €2 drink deals everywhere for students [the infamous Twisted Tuesdays], so I thought there was a market for a gay student night.”
When it was suggested that successful club nights in Dublin are a dying breed, Cormac replied modestly by saying that there have been a lot of successful club nights in Dublin that Trinity students are just not aware of. He asserts that it is only because he has strong links to Trinity that people are even aware of his own success. He even shrugged off the idea that he tapped into an unknown market.
“There was a gay club night scene out there,” he explained. “But it just wasn’t as well known in Trinity. I’m 25 now and I started my first club night when I was 21, so retrospectively I wouldn’t have had the greatest amount of knowledge about them. There was a gap in the market for good drinks promotions. That gap is now gone though because the deals have had a knock-on effect.”
Nevertheless, the Ents office has been relatively unsuccessful in gay club nights throughout the years. He told Bennett that even if all the LGBT societies came together in Dublin and had a clubnight it would not work because “you can’t tell students to go to the same club night every week”. While the pool of gay students in Dublin colleges is large, it is not enough to singlehandedly sustain a clubnight. Outsourcing it makes sense because if you have a special deal for Trinity students they still do not have to go every week. “If 200 Trinity students turned up in a 800 capacity club that works because it means it is still a Trinity night, but you also have other people there. You could even have an area for people in Trinity or special drink deals for them instead.”
Bennett went on to raise the issue of homophobia and whether Cashman had encountered it much while promoting his clubnights. However, in his experiences, “the only issues between the gay-straight divide is when a group of lads going on the pull come up to the door, are informed that it is a gay night and turn on their heels to find a Coppers-like venue”. However, in the case of an incident of homophobia Cormac believes that a “quick smack and they’ll fuck off” is the most effective remedy.
Then, with a tolerant club scene, will there always be a need for gay nights? “There will,” he said. “It’s simply a case of scoring. If a straight guy goes to a straight club he’s nearly guaranteed to score because there’s a load of people there. If a gay guy goes to one of those ‘all inclusive’ clubs it’s not the same. You’re just trying to whittle down the market. You want to have good drinks promotions, have fun with your mates and you want the score – that’s pretty much what you go out for.”
That said, the gay club night scene has become increasingly popular regardless of one’s sexual preferences. Cormac personally feels that gay club nights are much better than straight club nights because they are a lot more ‘craic’. While straight club nights have the “underlying macho have-to-impress-the-girl shit going on’, gay nights offer hetrosexuals the chance to let loose and forget about going on the pull.
“They realise that they’re probably not going to score here so they just have the craic. It’s just way more laid back, more fun and the music is generally a lot better as well.”
So the question remains, what is next for the ‘Cashman brand’?
Cormac denied the claim that he has plans of becoming the next MCD as he is quite happy with the situation he has right now. Not only does he run PrHomo on Thursdays, but he also runs Fridays Are Gay (F.A.G.) in Andrew’s Lane Theatre and a night in Mother Club. He has recently taken over The Wolfhound Guide, a family project that gives an A to Z of thousands of adult education courses and workshops in the greater Dublin area. Yet, he makes sure to take Sundays off to relax and go to the movies with his boyfriend.
Finally, Cormac reminisced about his time as Welfare officer. Even though he really enjoyed working for the students’ union, it is completely different to his career path he is on at the moment. He even admitted that he was happy not to get re-elected in 2010 because he would have found two years out of college to be a bit too much.
“You get fatigued with the job and you also get fatigued being in Trinity. I was there for five years; it gets old. College wears off.”
