To write the history of H.A.M.
is to write the history of one of the most significant chapters in the social and cultural fabric of Dublin. Han Tiernan explains how its evolution would irrevocably shift the club scene and queer nightlife and would leave an indelible mark on Irish theatre, drag, culture, art, and even graphic design. Nestled beneath the vaulted ceiling of POD nightclub in the former Harcourt Street train station, H.
A.M. – or, to give it its full title, Homo-Action-Movies for Butcher Queers – delivered a new sensibility in how it approached clubbing.
In an NCAD interview in 2021, co-founder Niall Sweeney described how the new weekly club “was serious!” “(H.A.M.
) was serious about its music; it was serious about dancing; it was serious about the joy and coming together of that. It was serious about the dancefloor. And it was also serious about the artistry and the installations we used to do.
” But this new-found seriousness was a departure for Niall and his colleague Rory O’Neill, now better known by his drag persona, Panti Bliss , from the previous club nights they had run. The pair first met at art college over a decade before H.A.
M. came to fruition. As the only two out gay guys in the college, as far as they knew, the pair began to hang out in Sides nightclub, which was co-owned by Niall’s older boyfriend, Frank Stanley.
But it wasn’t until Rory moved to Japan, that they really solidified their friendship. In the days before the internet an.
