An award has been presented to the late Cork sportsman, Oliver Murphy by the Federation of Gay Games.

The award was accepted on behalf of Murphy by the National LGBT Federation (NXF), represented by its former president, Tonie Walsh.

Murphy and his team were one of the largest delegations of any European country at the first Gay Games in 1982, which took place in San Francisco. While attending the games, he took the opportunity at the time to hit out at the legal position faced by gay people back home in Ireland. In a statement to the //Irish Press// he said: “our status is so bad that I don’t know if any of our jobs will be there when we get back”.

Murphy subsequently lost his job as school teacher.

Accepting the award in trust, Walsh, said that homophobic abuse was “rife” across the globe, when Murphy went to the Gay Games I.

“In Ireland, we experienced a botched Garda investigation into the murder of Charles Self, on top of two gruesome gay hate murders in respectively, Dublin’s Fairview Park and The Munster Hotel, Cork.

“Standing up against such a culture of abuse and prejudice took enormous courage and personal conviction, both which Oliver Murphy had in spades.

“He was a standard-bearer for gay people and sports people everywhere. If he were alive today what great company he’d be in.”