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  • 2 days ago
Curtis Coburn, chair and founder of Mid and East Antrim Pride speaks about the success of the first ever Pride parade in Ballymena.
Transcript
00:00so i'm basically in like a dark room trying to recover from yesterday but
00:06my heart is just so full of gratitude and i'm still just blown away like i've
00:13i thought the tears would have ended yesterday but i think just waking up today and seeing
00:19the pictures and videos and just everything from the event it's just been unbelievable.
00:27i think it's fair to say that history was made and then some more. we expected
00:35we expected a good show and like we expected you know spectators to come out and watch but
00:41we never could have imagined that it would have been on the scale that it was and
00:47for our very first Pride to have thousands of people involved in a town like Palomina
00:53it's just so beyond what we ever could have imagined. yeah so many people i have to thank
01:00obviously our entire committee for being there with me on this wild 10 months or so that we've put into
01:08planning this um the entire town really um i do want to give thanks to the police for
01:18allowing us to get around safely and for doing their jobs well um
01:25yeah i think the protesters were outnumbered and then some just with the amount of love and
01:30just the celebration of diversity that was on display um and the parade i think really had
01:39something for everyone there was something in the period that you could identify yourself with and i
01:43think that's really important and the vibes were just immaculate that's all i can say um i want to thank
01:52the front page bar for being amazing allies and i know their event last night went so well i know
01:59charlie's bar had like a pride event on as well and i think that's just amazing obviously we had our
02:05official after party at the dear arms hotel and that was amazing i want to thank all the queens the king
02:12dick von dyke legend and paddy walsh dj ray anyone who was involved um robert brown i know was involved in
02:22the front page of celebrations all weekend what a man what legend uh so yeah just so much gratitude
02:31and to our marshals also for getting us around safely and and also to our speakers who gave such
02:40passionate speeches uh before the event kicked off francis uh i know rossa were involved amazing uh nipsa
02:49uh i feel like i'm missing someone maluhar from the green party sheamus from the stlp um yeah
02:59such great speeches and really set the tone especially francis i think his his little anecdote about
03:08growing up in ballymena but not being able to grow up gay in ballymena i think that was very uh touching very
03:15personal pride's always been a target and as we've seen with uh hashtag slurry gate i think we're going
03:23with uh i mean do you did you honestly think some slurry was going to put a bunch of culties off
03:31walking down the street

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