Activist Tonie Walsh and club promoter Buzz O’Neill are among those sharing tributes following the death of queer DJ Alfred Alphonso.

After moving to Ireland from Singapore in the 1980s, Alfred Alphonso worked as a DJ and in the hospitality industry, and became a fixture of Dublin’s LGBTQ+ scene. He worked as a barman and manager for Minsky’s, an LGBTQ+ venue off St. Stephen’s Green. Alphonso died as a result of cancer in Portugal shortly after his 63rd birthday.

LGBTQ+ activist Tonie Walsh told GCN that Alphonso brought “colour and panache to everything he did, both in his personal life and in his professional life”.

Walsh said: “I recall with great fondness the time we shared an apartment in Dublin’s Mount Pleasant Square and the terrific Asian dinners he would magic up. He loved cooking and feeding people in the most joyous and convivial way.

“I’m devastated that I’ve lost a friend and DJ colleague of such long standing.”

Another friend of Alphonso’s, Karl Hayden, also paid tribute to the late DJ. Hayden told GCN: “Alf had an incredible impact on the gay scene in Dublin from the mid-1980s and beyond. I will never forget his love and kindness to me and everything I learned from him in the privileged time I got to spend with him.

“He was unique and wonderful and I would not be where I am today without having had him in my life at a very important stage in my coming to accept myself for who I was and understanding what it meant to be proud of who I was and what I was.”

Club promoter Buzz O’Neill also shared a tribute to Alphonso. In a post on Instagram, he shared two photos and wrote, “2 old pals chewing the fat now, having a good old goss. Rest in peace Alf.”