Madonna pulses through the speakers while a drag queen fixes her lashes in the mirror, teases a towering wig and steadies herself on impossibly high heels backstage.

It’s just another weeknight at Dublin institution The George – although there is nothing ordinary about the place that has spent four decades at the heart of Irish LGBTQ+ life.

This weekend, The George celebrates its 40th anniversary, marking not only the survival of one of Dublin’s most iconic nightlife venues, but the story of a space that became a sanctuary, a community and a lifeline for generations of Irish people.

Few people know that world better than DJ Karen Reddy. The 58-year-old Dubliner has worked at The George for 33 years, watching Ireland transform around it.

When asked for her single favourite memory ahead of the anniversary celebrations, she laughs at the impossibility of narrowing it down – because where do you even begin?

‘Well, a memorable one was the night Coolio arrived with his entourage and initially didn’t realise he was playing a gay venue,’ Karen smiles.

At the time, the late rapper was at the height of his fame thanks to Gangsta’s Paradise, and securing him for a comparatively small Dublin venue felt like a major coup.

‘He walked in, looked a bit surprised when he saw the statues at the bar, and someone told him, “you’re in a gay venue,” and he just went, “that’s cool”,’ she recalls. ‘He was grand about it.’

Then there was the night American singer Jocelyn Brown appeared as a complete surprise on Karen’s 34th birthday.

‘The manager at the time had arranged for her to play and I walked in and she was there singing, I nearly died,’ she says. ‘I had absolutely no idea.

‘It was one of those moments where you’re just standing there going, what is my life?’

Or the nights the floor felt like it might physically collapse during performances by R&B megastar Kelis, the packed drag bingo evenings hosted by Shirley Temple Bar that became part of Dublin nightlife folklore, and the endless parade of high-profile entertainers who have passed through the South Great George’s Street venue over the decades.

From Jimmy Somerville and East 17 to Mel C, Sugababes and The Saturdays, some of the world’s biggest acts all wanted their moment at The George.

‘We’ve always been ahead of the curve in music, like we had all these acts coming in in the 1990s for live performances and no one else was doing that,’ she says of its halcyon days. ‘The George was carving this reputation as the cool place to perform. We would have these huge acts and people were paying like a fiver or tenner to see them.’

But as Karen lists memory after memory, she keeps returning to the same thing – not the celebrities or spectacle, but the feeling inside the room itself.

‘It was euphoric walking through the door,’ she says quietly. ‘You felt safe, you could breathe, all the stuff came off your shoulders. It was just this whole other world.

‘She’s a matriarch, a sanctuary. She’s been there for everyone through all this time,’ says Karen softly, and that maternal description says everything about the place The George occupies in Irish life.

Because while today it is one of Dublin’s best-known nightlife institutions, its story stretches far beyond drinking and dancing. Its 40th anniversary also marks four decades as one of Ireland’s most enduring symbols of LGBTQ+ life – a venue that offered safety, solidarity and visibility during some of the darkest years in modern Irish history.

When The George first opened in the 1980s, Ireland was a profoundly different country. Homosexuality was still criminalised and would remain so until 1993. For many people, stepping through those doors was not simply about a night out, it was a defining moment of their lives.

Karen, who came out to her family at 22, remembers the repression and terror of those times clearly.

‘There were gay bashings and hate crimes happening all the time across Dublin,’ she recalls. ‘People were getting arrested, it was the height of the AIDS epidemic. It was a very scary time.’

Nights out were shaped by caution – avoiding certain streets, checking who might be watching, staying alert in case of attack.

Yet inside The George, another version of Ireland already seemed to exist. Even in its earliest form – a much smaller upstairs space known as The Loft before the venue expanded into neighbouring buildings – it offered a refuge of sorts, something many gay people could not find anywhere else. For gay men especially, she says, the stakes were frighteningly high.

‘People often fled to The George because it was the only place they could be themselves,’ Karen says. ‘You’d see them coming up to the door nervous and then they’d walk in and it was like a weight lifted off them. They realised they weren’t on their own.

‘Being gay was a criminal act in the eyes of Ireland and gay men were treated like criminals. They were afraid of losing jobs, being attacked, having their names printed in newspapers. You didn’t dare announce that you were gay for fear of retribution.’

In many ways, that is the real story of The George across the past 40 years. Not simply the drag queens, celebrity performances or legendary parties – although that all became part of its mythology – but the fact that long before Ireland progressed, The George had already created an inclusive, safe space.

While today is a very different Ireland than it was in the 1990s, as marriage equality has passed, LGBTQ+ visibility is mainstream and younger generations walk through the doors with a freedom earlier crowds could scarcely have imagined, Karen says she still witnesses emotional transformations night after night.

‘You see it all the time – the young lad from rural Ireland who is the only gay in the village and then they come to Dublin and they walk into the George and it’s like they are in New York or something. They find their tribe,’ she smiles.

‘But some of the younger generations might not realise the struggle that went into having a space like this.

‘We have our own community and support system,’ Karen says. ‘People meet their friends here, meet the love of their life here. It’s somewhere they feel comfortable being themselves.’

That deep sense of community is also what Karen believes has kept The George alive while so many other famous Dublin nightclubs have disappeared.

Pre-Covid, Dublin was packed with nightlife institutions – the Pod, the Red Box, Temple Theatre, the Kitchen – but many are now long gone.

The George has endured, and for good reason, Karen says, citing how the venue’s role extends well beyond nightlife. Over the years, it has supported LGBTQ+ sports clubs, hosted fundraising events, run charity initiatives and even facilitated rapid HIV testing clinics.

‘We support the community and they support us back,’ she says simply.

That spirit was perhaps never more visible than on the night Ireland voted for marriage equality in 2015. Karen remembers the atmosphere inside the building changing minute by minute as the referendum results came in.

‘It was joy, exhilaration, disbelief,’ she says. ‘People were screaming, crying, dancing. People were getting engaged inside the pub. Then you walked outside and the whole city was alive – horns beeping, people everywhere, nobody wanting the night to end.’

Ireland had become the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote, something that once felt unimaginable to many LGBTQ+ Irish people.

‘A lot of people emigrated before decriminalisation,’ Karen says. ‘They went to England, America, Canada – somewhere they felt they could actually live their life properly.’

Not every moment at The George has been celebratory. In 2008, the venue was subjected to a bomb scare during Pride. The hoax threat disrupted festivities and remains one of the scariest and darkest chapters in its history. Karen wasn’t in work that day, but she recalls how that shook and angered the gay community in the city.

‘It was just symbolic of the kind of stuff we were protesting against,’ she says. ‘Pride will always be a protest because yes, we’re going out and celebrating that we’re gay, but we’re also protesting at what has happened in the past.

‘But I think you have to remember the fun. In such a serious world, we have a lot of fun,’ she laughs of the George’s music performances, drag shows, karaoke – and what about the crazy party nights?

‘People always ask me that,’ she laughs. ‘People always ask about the wildest moments and honestly, it’s just the usual stuff on a night out, maybe with a bit more dazzle,’ she smiles, although you get the sense she knows more than she’ll ever say. She chuckles when she recalls some particularly enthusiastic dancing from a client when Madonna was blaring during one of her DJ sets.

‘He did the splits and his trousers ripped,’ she laughs.

‘I suppose it is the type of place where you never know what’s going to happen,’ she muses of her job, where celebrity guests, flamboyant characters and very interesting regulars are par for the course. ‘Melanie C was lovely, and Jimmy Somerville too but obviously Jocelyn Brown was my absolute favourite.

Political figures such as Leo Varadkar and David Norris are familiar faces too, although Karen refuses to be pressed on whether they cut impressive moves on the dancefloor.

After 33 years behind the decks, she still gets excited going to work.

‘I have a very privileged job,’ she admits. ‘It’s not like sitting behind a desk doing 9-to-5. I get to interact with customers, play music, do the sound and lights for the shows, and you never know what’s going to happen.’

While Ireland has become far more accepting and inclusive over the decades, Karen admits she worries about rising hostility and inclusivity today.

‘I think things have become a lot more tolerant but I think it’s starting to slip slightly lately,’ she says. ‘That’s why places like The George are still very important.’

She hopes that the venue will continue to pave the way for Ireland’s queer community decades from now. That said, these days, parents bring children celebrating their 18th birthdays to The George – something unimaginable during its earliest years.

‘The dynamic has changed, and it’s brilliant that we can do that for people,’ she says.

Perhaps nowhere is that evolution more visible than in the drag scene that The George helped nurture, thanks in no small way to Shirley Temple Bar.

‘One of the drag queens, her parents are there at nearly every show giving support,’ Karen says, beaming while talking about the new generation now taking to the stage. ‘She’s a baby drag.

‘The George wouldn’t be The George without the drag queens. In fact, it’s the George community which makes this place so special.’