​Women's group on a mission to restore Newry Pride Festival

Top of the to-do list this year is trying to get some form of Newry Pride back on the go.

​A new LGBTQ+ community group is building a presence in Newry after forming in the summer of 2023.

Newry LGBTQ+ Women’s Group are on a mission to give visibility to the vibrant LGBTQ+ community here and spread some queer joy back across the city.

Although fully women-led and centred, they hope to open up more LGBTQ+ wide events in the future and be a positive force to bring the community together.

One of the founders, Jenny Deane, explained how the group was formed. “A few of us decided to hold a meeting last August, after the was no pride festival for four years running.

The group has 66 members, holds a weekly games night and other social events.

"Discussions are still at an early stage, and there is a lot of work still to do , but it looks like we will be able to bring Newry Pride back this year.

“We have had quite a few positive meetings and commitments given from potential stakeholders.

"Unfortunately the former Newry Pride organisers are unable to continue in their role, however we are very excited that they have given us their full blessing to proceed with plans and putting our stamp on it.

"That's the big aspiration at the moment and we have been applying for funding to try and achieve it.

If that's successful, we'll definitely be looking for more people to get involved on a Pride Committee. We may need as much help as possible to make this wonderful." Jenny added.

They wanted to do more for Newry's gay community so at the end of August we created a private Facebook Community group and started organising some social meet-ups.”

The last Newry Pride festival was in 2019, pre pandemic

To find out more, the group can be contacted by email: [email protected] or Facebook: LGBTQ Women's Group Newry.