'History made' at Mid and East Antrim Pride parade in Ballymena

Curtis Coburn, chair and founder of Mid and East Antrim Pride speaks about the success of the first ever Pride parade in Ballymena.

Transcript

00:00so i'm basically in like a dark room trying to recover from yesterday but

00:06my heart is just so full of gratitude and i'm still just blown away like i've

00:13i thought the tears would have ended yesterday but i think just waking up today and seeing

00:19the pictures and videos and just everything from the event it's just been unbelievable.

00:27i think it's fair to say that history was made and then some more. we expected

00:35we expected a good show and like we expected you know spectators to come out and watch but

00:41we never could have imagined that it would have been on the scale that it was and

00:47for our very first Pride to have thousands of people involved in a town like Palomina

00:53it's just so beyond what we ever could have imagined. yeah so many people i have to thank

01:00obviously our entire committee for being there with me on this wild 10 months or so that we've put into

01:08planning this um the entire town really um i do want to give thanks to the police for

01:18allowing us to get around safely and for doing their jobs well um

01:25yeah i think the protesters were outnumbered and then some just with the amount of love and

01:30just the celebration of diversity that was on display um and the parade i think really had

01:39something for everyone there was something in the period that you could identify yourself with and i

01:43think that's really important and the vibes were just immaculate that's all i can say um i want to thank

01:52the front page bar for being amazing allies and i know their event last night went so well i know

01:59charlie's bar had like a pride event on as well and i think that's just amazing obviously we had our

02:05official after party at the dear arms hotel and that was amazing i want to thank all the queens the king

02:12dick von dyke legend and paddy walsh dj ray anyone who was involved um robert brown i know was involved in

02:22the front page of celebrations all weekend what a man what legend uh so yeah just so much gratitude

02:31and to our marshals also for getting us around safely and and also to our speakers who gave such

02:40passionate speeches uh before the event kicked off francis uh i know rossa were involved amazing uh nipsa

02:49uh i feel like i'm missing someone maluhar from the green party sheamus from the stlp um yeah

02:59such great speeches and really set the tone especially francis i think his his little anecdote about

03:08growing up in ballymena but not being able to grow up gay in ballymena i think that was very uh touching very

03:15personal pride's always been a target and as we've seen with uh hashtag slurry gate i think we're going

03:23with uh i mean do you did you honestly think some slurry was going to put a bunch of culties off

03:31walking down the street