When dad died I gave myself a hernia trying to squeeze out a tear
Norris ‘didn’t give damn’ over his death
the three of us now and we have got to stick together’ while roaring crying.
“I gave myself a hernia trying to squeeze out a tear because I didn’t give a damn.
“I didn’t miss my father at all. I can’t say much about my father because I didn’t know him at all.”
Mr Norris, who is an advocate for gay rights in Ireland and spearheaded the same sex marriage referendum in 2015, recalled telling his mother Aida about his sexuality.
He added: “I said, ‘I’m gay’. She was out in the garden with the roses and said, ‘Oh that’s lovely’ and that was it.
“I adored my mother but the funny thing is there wasn’t any great physical affection. But all those people from that class behaved like that.”
Senator Norris said he always felt different from everyone else growing up in Ireland.
He added: “As a gay man I didn’t feel a 100% real. Real people went off and met girls, got married and had children and that was reality.
“It was as if I was enclosed in a glass tube and I could see the people outside but I couldn’t
With Panti Bliss & Gerry Adams hear them or communicate with them.” And Senator Norris believes negative media attention he received during his 2011 presidential campaign led to him being diagnosed liver cancer two years later.
He said: “I was going around the country meeting people who were helping out but then the media set on me, very homophobic attacks, and they told lies.
“I’m convinced that liver cancer was as a result of the trauma I was put through.” Keys To My Life is on RTE One at 8.30pm.
news@irishmirror.ie