{"id":650028,"date":"2026-10-09T23:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T23:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650028\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T23:00:08","slug":"the-disappearance-of-patsy-osullivan-he-was-gay-we-all-knew-but-it-was-never-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650028\/","title":{"rendered":"The disappearance of Patsy O&#8217;Sullivan: &#8216;He was gay&#8230;we all knew, but it was never said&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>His family learned recently after three decades of searching, that he had been living with his husband in London since 1994, having taken his husband&#8217;s name, Aldridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Patsy died in 2024, leaving their questions unanswered, but thanks to his <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/munster\/arid-41920474.html\">carer Tina<\/a>, they have been united with the Aldridge family, who can fill in the missing pieces of his life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Before his disappearance Patsy had been hospitalised with mental health issues, but his brother Jerry&#8217;s biggest fear was always that somebody else had harmed his soft, gentle brother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Patsy&#8217;s family were aware of his sexuality, but it was never acknowledged or discussed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In today&#8217;s episode, Jerry recalls the &#8220;physical and mental&#8221; abuse Patsy received due to his sexuality \u2014 and remembers avoiding his brother&#8217;s company in public for fear of the abuse that would be directed at him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Declan Flynn had been murdered because of his sexuality in Fairview Park in 1982, and it was a crime in Ireland to be gay until 1993.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jerry O&#8217;Sullivan is Deirdre&#8217;s guest on today&#8217;s episode of the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/podcasts\/podcast-dos\/\">Deirdre O&#8217;Shaughnessy Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His family learned recently after three decades of searching, that he had been living with his husband in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5658,28122,110512,79,61,60,105888,43],"class_list":["post-650028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-examiner-instagram","tag-podcasts-home","tag-the-deirdre-o-shaughnessy-podcast","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-missing-people","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}