Let’s reclaim this word hijacked by homophobes

LAST night, as my wife and I were agonising over whether we should ban our grandchildren from listening to ‘Fairytale of New York’, I mentioned that, in the Longford of my youth, ‘faggot’ was used as a term of contempt, derision and abuse by women towards other women, as in “that stuck-up oul’ faggot”.

She recalled that when she was young in Clones, her mother often called her a “bould little faggot”. Perhaps it’s time to reclaim the word from the homophobes. Tom Farrell

Swords, Co Dublin