‘It was beyond homophobia’: Sligo’s LGBTQ community still reeling after Yousef Palani’s spree of violence

Mary Branley remembers the shock on the faces of the young people from the LGBTQ community in Sligo at a vigil outside Sligo Town Hall in the wake of the murders of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee.

“They were horrified that this could happen to someone in the tribe,” the writer said. “They were horrified that such hate existed, to that violent extent.”

Branley recalls the reaction to a four-day spree of violence last year that shocked the north-western town, days after Yousef Palani (23) was jailed this week for life for the murder of the two gay men.

In April 2022 Palani used a dating app to track the two men he killed and a third man, Anthony Burke, he seriously assaulted. He stabbed Moffitt and Snee to death in their homes and mutilated their bodies.

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Branley, a former teacher who had worked with some of the teenagers, members of the Smily youth group, on a book called Love is Love about their “queer experiences”, says the entire community in Sligo was stunned by the murders and the nature of the “frenzied, diabolical attack” on the local men.

For her, as an older lesbian, the murders stirred memories of another attack on a member of the gay community more than 20 years earlier. In that act of violence, US writer Robert Drake was beaten and left for dead by two local men. He had moved to Sligo a month earlier, in 1999, to be with his partner, a doctor in Sligo hospital. Drake is still in a wheelchair and unable to live independently as a result of the attack in his home.

Branley was one of those involved in a fundraising event for Drake in the local Blue Lagoon pub, a benefit organised by Sligo-based writers in a protest against “anti-queerdom in Sligo”.

But Branley, then a local primary school teacher, also remembers the horrified reaction in the staffroom when colleagues realised her involvement.

“People were aghast that not only was I going to it, but I was MC. They said: ‘I would not be seen at something like that,’” she recalls.

She has never been overly complacent about attitudes towards the LGBTQ community.

“We barely crossed the line here in the marriage equality referendum,” she says, recalling the 2015 vote.

She remembers leaving her local polling station on the day of the referendum and bumping into an older couple on their way in to vote.

“They would not meet my eyes going in. I know they were voting against. They knew me. So it can be very personal. My neighbours were going to decide on my rights. It can be hurtful,” she said.

“It is not a case that we are ever happy-go-lucky about gay rights”.

The police were telling us it was fine, but it was still terrifying going into town. I present as quite openly queer and it is very difficult to be confident in yourself when two guys were murdered

—  'E', a 16-year-old trans boy

While she would not hesitate to let people know she is gay because “it is not my problem any more”, she says that does not mean there isn’t homophobia around.

One of the Sligo Smily group of teens, a 16-year-old trans boy who wants to be identified by the initial “E”, was not at the vigil organised by Sligo Pride following the April 2022 murders.

“I was not allowed go. My parents thought it would be unsafe for me to go,” says E.

For a few days after the murders of Mr Moffitt (42), the affable businessman “devoted to Roscommon GAA and horse racing”, and Michael Snee (58), a man known in his community for his gentle nature and devotion to his family, E was “terrified” going into town.

[ Families remember ‘kind’, ‘fun’ and ‘caring’ Michael Snee and Aidan Moffitt who were murdered by Yousef Palani ]

Even after Palani’s arrest, the terror lingered.

“The police were telling us it was fine, but it was still terrifying going into town. I present as quite openly queer and it is very difficult to be confident in yourself when two guys were murdered,” says E.

The teenager believes there is no escape from homophobia.

“It is terrifying, having to protect yourself from it. I was always a bit apprehensive but it definitely stuck, that fear that anything could happen – for being who I am,” says the teen.

“I don’t think we will ever fully escape it. There will always be people like that.”

Leitrim-based LGBT activist Izzy Kamikaze (Ruth O’Rourke), who was involved in the first Sligo Pride event in 2006, took comfort from the remarks by Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring, the Central Criminal Court judge who sentenced Palani on Monday.

She said in court that Palani’s three victims were “cherished and valuable” members of their communities and had nothing to be ashamed of, adding that “shame is borne in this court by one man”.

“Any gay person my age who was around to hear what was said in the Fairview Park case can only have been relieved to hear that,” says Kamikaze, referring to the 1982 killing of gay man Declan Flynn.

Across the LGBTQ community in Sligo there are many unanswered questions as people struggle to understand how a young man who had never come to the attention of gardaí could be capable of such violence

Flynn was attacked and killed in Fairview Park in Dublin. Kamikaze, as she is known in her activism, came out as gay in September 1982, the same month he was killed.

The attitude then was that Flynn’s killing could never be a murder “because they were so offended by a gay man that of course they would attack him – his existence was so odious to them”, she says.

The Leitrim-based activist is worried that the Palani case is being framed by some in terms of culture or religion, which she argues “has its own dangers.”

Across the LGBTQ community in Sligo there are many unanswered questions as people struggle to understand how a young man who had never come to the attention of gardaí could be capable of such violence. Branley says his behaviour “was nearly beyond human, beyond homophobia”.

[ ‘Everyone knows me now as associated with these murders’: Palani victim feels depressed, betrayed and, above all, angry ]

Izzy Kamikaze is equally bewildered.

Senior gardaí who called in the Armed Support Unit before Palani was arrested, believed then that there was a strong possibility they would find more bodies.

An order was given that potential victims were to be warned in person and if there was no response at their homes, entry should be forced, so grave was the danger to those men using dating apps.

When Palani was identified and arrested at the family home, gardaí were shocked to discover more than €350,000 in the house, much of the cash in €500 and €200 notes, filling a number of plastic bags and two suitcases. A Criminal Assets Bureau investigation into the source of the cash is continuing. Links to terrorism and organised crime have been ruled out.

The pain caused to the Moffitt and Snee families is immeasurable and Palani’s third victim, Anthony Burke, who was stabbed in the eye, is facing years of psychological recovery ahead.

“It is a real horror story what that man has been through,” says Izzy Kamikaze.

“But if he had not escaped, I believe there could have been two or three more bodies. This man intended to kill more people. It is good fortune that his first attempt was unsuccessful. He maimed the man but if he had killed him I don’t know how long it would have taken for him to be caught.”