I grew up in council estate in Clondalkin. My mam raised the five of us mostly on her own. My dad left when I was nine and he was mostly absent.

We grew up poor. We didn’t know where our next meal was coming from, and I lived in my school uniform because I didn’t have much of my own clothes. But I just normalised that as a kid because you know nothing else.

My mam had two jobs just to try to keep us in school. She is the most resilient person I know. She is a Magdalene laundry survivor after becoming an orphan. She had five children by the age of 26, and then became a single mother. The strength of that woman is incalculable. And even though we were never rich by any means, my mam would always say we were rich in love.

Although we were poor, we did have the stability of home and community. The children in the estate would be out playing all day. Some came from complex families.

Having said that, we all looked out for each other, especially the mothers. They always supported each other.

I always wanted to escape Ireland. I always knew I was different. I was a gay kid who loved books growing up in an area where houses were sometimes raided for drugs. It was quite normal for us.

I loved animals and I loved the sunshine. From the age of 12, I was hoping to move to Australia and get a job in conservation. I planned my future around that. I got my degree in zoology, and I was six months away from leaving.

[ James Kavanagh: Anxiety had me in a chokehold … I wasn’t able to leave the houseOpens in new window ]

But then I got my HIV diagnosis aged 21. My immune system was so low, and I had to start medication straight away. I wasn’t able to get access to treatment in Australia and I could no longer get a residency visa because I had HIV. My dream of escaping Ireland was over.

I felt like I hit rock bottom. I was so focused on what HIV took away from me.

After a while, I decided I need to reframe how I thought about Ireland, because I wasn’t going to escape it. Actually, Ireland was keeping me alive because I had access to medicines here, and I had my family here.

I knew I had to change my relationship with Ireland, and I did that by trying to be an active contributor to Irish life, and by making sure that my experience of being diagnosed with HIV wasn’t going to be everyone else’s. I wanted to break the vicious cycle of shame, silence and ignorance around HIV.

It’s been such a blessing in disguise for me. I’ve met some of the best people, who also live with HIV, and I would have never have met them if I didn’t have this chronic health condition.

The HIV community is a story of resilience. When society tries to shame you or put you down, we say no to all of those things. I deserve to be loved, I deserve to have great sex, and I deserve to love myself. When you can do that for yourself, even against the odds, it becomes your superpower because nothing anyone says really matters.

Learning to self-love, knowing that you still deserve to thrive in this world, and that HIV doesn’t define you, lessens people’s ability to enact stigma on you. It empowers people to stand up for themselves.

Through my work, I’ve learned just how neighbourly Ireland is. We have great access to political figures in comparison to the UK and the US. I’ve talked to people in the US Senate, but you don’t really talk to them, you talk to their staffers, while in Ireland you have direct access to the decision makers in this country.

Ireland is a place where real change can happen if relationships are built upon

—  Robbie Lawlor

For example, I made a play about HIV with my friend and playwright Sean Dunne in 2015. From there, we got on the Late Late Show, and because of that we were approached by a film-maker who helped us turn the play into a film, How to Tell a Secret, with funding from the Irish Arts Council. It toured around the world and now it’s on Netflix.

I set up Poz Vibes podcast with Veda Lady in 2021 for people living with HIV, and our support network. From that we are collaborating with the HSE on the You, Me and HIV campaign [a new nationwide campaign to address misconceptions around HIV].

[ Niamh Hargan: ‘I grew up in Derry with a noncomplex relationship with Irishness and identity’Opens in new window ]

All these things have led me to believe that Ireland is a place where real change can happen if relationships are built upon, if we fully utilise the connections we make.

I always think back to myself at 21 being diagnosed with HIV in 2012, and asking my mam, “Who is gonna love me, Mam?” She said, “Well I’ll love ya.”

But at the same time, I lived in a deafening silence. No one was talking about HIV. But now just a few years later, because mobilisation happened, we have the very first nationwide campaign raising awareness, featuring people openly living with HIV. We have our first organisation that is run by and for people living with HIV, called Poz Vibe Tribe. It’s extraordinary.

In conversation with Jennifer Cosgrove. Robbie Lawlor is co-founder of Access to Medicines Ireland, co-host of the podcast @pozvibepod and is currently part of The SHIFT Study, led by the University of Galway in collaboration with the Department of Health and funded by Health Research Board, exploring why STI rates remain higher than pre-Covid levels, and how to strengthen prevention.