TV host assaulted outside gay bar

TELEVISION PRESENTER Brendan Courtney has said attacks on the gay community are a regular occurrence in Dublin.

Courtney, the presenter of RTÉ's Off the Railsseries, was assaulted in the early hours of Saturday morning outside Dublin's best-known gay bar The George.

He was with a group of friends when a man came “out of nowhere” and hit him in the face, calling him a “queer”.

Courtney said the incident, which occurred at about 2.30am, was over in an instant and he did not catch sight of his attacker, though he thought he might be in his mid-twenties.

Courtney went to the Irish Film and Television Awards on Saturday evening sporting a black eye. “It is ironic that it happened before probably the most public night of my life,” he said.

He told RTÉ's Livelineprogramme that he had received 50 Facebook messages from gay people who had been assaulted or verbally abused in a similar fashion.

“Shockingly, we have a gorgeous, cosmopolitan city, but it is still alarming and bizarre that this sort of thing still happens.”

He said any gay person who was assaulted should contact the Garda’s gay and lesbian community liaison officer as he had done.