Swingers in Dublin

I'm going to take a break from the original material I do as regards interviewing the people of Dublin. I'll get back to it soon but for my next few posts I'd like to talk about the different things happening in Dublin that a lot of us aren't too familiar with.

Photo Credit: thesea/

"The swinging scene is a lot more undercover in Ireland due to the nature of our society."

I've previously finished a radio documentary about Swingers in Dublin - it was quite a surreal experience.

I'm so thankful to all of the people who spoke to me and I feel so lucky that I managed to speak so such different types of people. 

One man I spoke to was Tom Hogan who was a swingers event organiser. To see Tom on the street you wouldn't think that he works in such a 'crazy' profession. Speaking to him he was so pleasant and happy to share all of his experiences with me. 

Here's some of what he had to say:

How did you get started into the lifestyle of swinging?

"a guy visisted our website development company about 3 and a half, four years ago looking for a website entitled Irish Swingers Club.com. We made a very fine website but the client never resurfaced to take advantage of this website we had created. Ordinarily we would just forget about it but this particular website radiated a lot of traffic in a very short period of time. As a former nightclub operator I detected a buisness opportunity - once a month running a party would seem to make a lot of sense. So with my wifes permission and consultation from my family I embarked upon the swinging scene in November 2001."

Have you ever partaken in it or are you just an organiser?

"To be honest I would have thought at the start that the temptation would have been too profound and would require a huge amount of self control on my part. However it's not like that at all - you enter the scene as a manager of the event."

Do you ever receive hate mail from anyone being an organiser?

"No, from all the media exposure I haven't received one nasty email."

What do you enjoy most about working in this type of industry?

"I actually quite enjoy the night, and it's very profitable."

How does becoming a member work?

"We don't have a membership fee for single girls or couples. We charge the single guys. €95 euro for a 3 month period - we have a range of services they get for that. We have a dating service thats No Strings Attached (NSA)." 

I found Tom's industry of work fascinating - I wouldn't know how someone could work in this industry all of the time and still remain 'normal'. I was curious to hear if he had seen any arguments at the parties and whether or not it always went smoothly.