The annual descent of hundreds of LGBT and queer women upon the city of Cork occurred last weekend, and I was lucky enough to be a participant in some of the madness. I’ve attended all of the women’s weekends for the last number of years, and each year the craic and community aspects of the weekend continue to impress and entertain me.

As usual, most of the weekend was spent with a vicious hangover, but I put it aside long enough to pop my head into the workshop on the queer women’s flag, where the first international women’s pride flag was envisaged and put together to represent women from all backgrounds who participate in pride. The symbols and colours were heavily discussed, an interesting discussion on the word queer was initiated and teased out.

The colours chosen were purple for dignity, white for integrity and green for growth – values the group wished to place at the centre of a women’s pride movement. I think it’s great and the workshop illustrated for me some of the best aspects of the weekend. The sense of community and the respect for diverse opinions – for example I’m not at all comfortable with use of the word queer, some women however identify quite strongly with it – was overwhelming in that room, and the sometimes bitter squabbling which I have witnessed in previous years at the women’s weekend was not present at all.

Of course that’s not to say there was no vicious fighting – the sumo wrestling tournament was a place for all the dyke drama to spill on to the mat and allowed lovely dykes to wear ridiculous suits and pummel each other to the soundtrack of a other lesbians puking with laughter. The first –hopefully – annual Women’s Weekend Sumo Championship proved to be one of the most hilarious experiences of my life. With a good friend of mine proving victorious in the championship and the holder of the cup until next year, I’m sure we can look forward to more fun and frolics then!

The Silversprings played host to the Saturday night party featuring Lonely and the Moose, The Lounge Lizards, Line dancing and DJ Claude until late – the craic was mighty and the banter was great. While I disagree with the very strict man-ban in place for the events at the weekend, this year I found the space to be very warm and welcoming, and not as aggressive as I’ve witnessed it in previous years.

The full program contained workshops on knitting, creative writing, soccer and tennis tournaments, speed friending and of course the annual fun weekend quiz in Loafers on Sunday afternoon. Food and produce stalls were in the South Parish community centre all day Saturday and tarot card reading was offered also.

Once again the weekend provided fun and entertainment to hundreds of women – I look forward to next year! Well done the committee for putting it together, and I hope everyone else gets the chance to experience the weekend at a point in the future.

Full details on this year’s Cork Women’s Fun Weekend can be found on http://www.corkwomensfunweekend.ie/

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