On a Saturday night in 1980, as the nation watched The Late Late Show, Gay Byrne introduced the final segment of the night, saying: “Now ladies and gentlemen our final guest is Joni. I am not going to tell you Joni’s surname, but Joni is a lesbian and she wants to talk to us about the situation she finds herself in being a lesbian.”
I was sitting on the floor by the fire in my pyjamas, my parents on their chairs either side of me, my brothers lined up on the sofa, and I wondered if they could hear my heart hammering.