PANTI BLISS has become a very important figure in the progressive Ireland that has been shaped in recent years.
Part glamorous aunt, part Jessica Rabbit, she’s a wittily incisive performer with charisma to burn, regarded as one of the best drag queens in the world.
Created by Rory O’Neill, Panti is also an accidental activist and in her own words ‘a court jester, whose role is to say the unsayable’.
Over the last few years Rory has become a figurehead for LGBTQ rights in Ireland and his fight for equality and against homophobia has become recognised across the world.
A film about his life released in 2015 showed Rory’s journey from the small Mayo town of Ballinrobe to striding the world stage.
It takes us behind the scenes with his alter ego Panti in the year she became the symbol of Ireland’s march towards marriage equality.
Ahead of the screening of The Queen of Ireland at the British Museum to mark the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Free & Equal Campaign, Rory opened up on the London Calling podcast about life as Panti Bliss and becoming an 'accidental activist'.
