With a crack of a whip they were away. Dublin's annual gay and lesbian pride parade set off through the city's thoroughfares at the weekend with a drag queen in a chariot menacing onlookers with a long black leather whip.
Bringing up the rear of the balloon- and streamer-filled procession was a float repeatedly belting out a recording of Doris Day singing a song she made famous as the eponymous hero in the classic 1953 western musical, Calamity Jane.
The float's cast of characters from a Wild West saloon mimed energetically amid hay bales and gingham drapes to the film's hit song, The Deadwood Stage, with its chorus of "whip crack-away, whip crack-away, whip crack-away".
This year's annual parade blended celebration of the
10th anniversary of the decriminalisation of
homosexual acts between consenting adults with a reminder that same sex
partners still demand vindication of other rights.
An open air double-decker bus draped in purple cloth carried a large sign which read: Legal Ten, Equal When.
Several thousand people participated in the pageant which set off from Parnell Square on Saturday afternoon and wended its way through streets thronged with GAA fans heading for Croke Park.
The parade ended with an outdoor concert at an ampitheatre at Dublin City Council's Civic Offices at Wood Quay, where there were musical performances, drag queens and a supervised bouncy castle for children.
A French homosexual couple living in Ireland, Mr Laurent Lanies and Mr Michael Riedel, dressed flamboyantly as a bride and groom for the event to highlight their call for recognition of same sex unions.
"There's no real rights in Ireland for that and we would like to show to everybody we can be gay and be together," said Mr Riedel.
"It will take something like 25 years in Ireland to be married and have the same rights as
gays in the Netherlands or Australia."
The Netherlands and Belgium are the only two member-states of the European Union to have legalised gay marriage.
Ms Pauline McCreesh from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, tied the familiar orange county shirt of the reigning All-Ireland champions around her waist as she marched along, predicting accurately that the team would later give the Dublin boys "an awful lesson".
Ms McCreesh, accompanied by Ms Fiona McDonald also from Co Armagh, said there was too much gay bashing and bigotry in Belfast for people to come out on the streets for the gay and lesbian pride cause.
"That's why a lot of people come down here because you can be yourself and there's less hassle and prejudice," she said.
Mr Paul Byrne, the treasurer of Dublin lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer pride parade said the event was a "celebration of identity".
He added that there were still areas of inequality for gay couples in relation to marriage, child adoption and pension rights.