‘I fought so that people had the choice, I choose not to be bothered’ – David Norris tells RTÉ show why marriage was not for him

On RTÉ's The Meaning of Life, to be broadcast tonight, he says he didn't see the "necessity" to get married even though he played a pivotal role in Ireland's referendum vote in 2015.

"Why would I get married? It's there. I've fought for marriage equality, but that is so that people had the choice, and I choose not to be bothered," Mr Norris said.

While many same-sex couples have children in Ireland today, he says it was not for him. "I can enjoy my nephew and nieces' children, but I don't have to put up with them all day," he says.

The 80-year-old also reveals he has a "clean bill of health" from the doctors after a few difficult years in which he was treated for cancer in "virtually every part of my body".

Looking back on his life, the civil-rights activist remembers founding the Irish gay rights movement 50 years ago when homosexuality was still a crime in Ireland.

"Young people don't believe it at all, but why should they? It's not relevant to their life," he tells presenter Joe Duffy. "I was on the first-ever gay march, there were seven of us. We picketed the Department of Justice and the British Embassy.

"I wanted to use the full extent of the legal system. I wanted to go to the High Court. I wanted to go to the Supreme Court. And I wanted to go to Strasbourg," he said, referring to his long-running and eventually successful legal proceedings to decriminalise homosexuality that ran through the late '70s and '80s.

'Why would I get married' - Senator David Norris discusses marriage and death with Joe Duffy

In 1982, Dublin man Declan Flynn was savagely beaten to death by a gang of teenagers who admitted they attacked him because of his sexuality. Mr Flynn's death became a catalyst for the gay rights movement here.

"I remember that very well...­Declan Flynn, who I knew reasonably well," Mr Norris said, adding there was a lot of anger at the treatment of the gay community. "There was, because of the injustice of it. It was dreadful.

"But look at the transformation. We now have the head of the Senate, Jerry Buttimer, (who) is gay. Leo Varadkar, the [former] taoiseach (is) gay. It's marvellous."

​In the frank interview, the Trinity College academic also speaks openly about his devastation at the death of his late Israeli partner, Ezra Nawi, during the pandemic in 2021.

"It was terrible because it was during Covid, and I couldn't even visit him during his illness. He got a brain tumour, and that was what killed him," Mr Norris said.

He knew the Israeli peace activist for 30 or 40 years. "I was [in love] very much so," he said before describing his devastation when Mr Nawi broke up their relationship. "That was a bit of a stinker, and he met up then with the Israeli discus and javelin champion.

"A very, very nice man. I met him, and I'm still in touch with him. Life is nasty, brutal and short, and there is no time for grudges."

When asked if his ex broke his heart, Mr Norris said: "He did. I remember lying flat on the sofa in this room, paralysed with the horror that I'd lost Ezra. I certainly didn't see a rosy future, but if you give things time, they resolve themselves."

His relationship with his ex-partner caused him to drop out of the presidential race in 2011 after it emerged that Mr Nawi had been convicted of the statutory rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in 1992. "Some of the comments on my candidacy was very wounding and hurtful," Mr Norris said.

"I remember waking up, crying, and thinking could I be this kind of monster that I was being portrayed as? That was very unpleasant."

If you kick a wasps' nest long enough, they will sting you

Mr Norris came under fire when it emerged that he wrote a clemency letter on his former partner's behalf. He said: "I was a friend, a lover of Ezra, and of course, I would stand by him and write a letter for him."

He added that his late peace-activist partner was Jewish, but "strongly pro-Palestinian".

"The appalling slaughter of the civilian population of Gaza, that is a transgression against the fundamental Jewish ethic, which is 'L'Chaim' - to life. And all Netanyahu can produce is death," Mr Norris said.

"I think people all over the world are doing what they can. The protests on campuses, including Trinity, I think they're quite right to do that."

He added that Benjamin Netanyahu is appallingly unpopular in Israel, saying: "If he called a general election now, he'd lose, hands down."

​Mr Norris described the actions of Hamas on October 7 as "quite wrong". He added: "But if you kick a wasps' nest long enough, they will sting you.

"And that's what they did. They have had to put up with what they call the 'Nakba', the disaster, since 1947.

"I would not justify it...it was understandable."

Mr Norris's controversial exit from the presidential race in 2011 meant he was around to fight Enda Kenny's attempt to abolish the Seanad a few years later.

"I saved the Senate, the Senate was going to be abolished," he said.

The now-retired senator, who is not afraid of dying, has given very explicit instructions for his funeral. "I am prepared to die. I've already recorded the talk," he said.

He has even chosen the epitaph for the headstone. "It says 'we are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep'.

"I think the words I've chosen are absolutely perfect, nobody can argue with them."

​'The Meaning of Life' with guest David Norris will be broadcast on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player tonight at 10.30pm