Thom McGinty

Thomas McGinty (1 April 1952 – 20 February 1995), known as The Diceman, was a Scottish-Irish actor, model, and street artist specialising in mime. Born in Scotland of Irish parentage, McGinty spent much of his life and career in Ireland, where he became a landmark living statue and one of the country's most popular street performers. He appeared in various plays and films, and through his work promoted political causes including gay rights in Ireland; he has been dubbed a "gay icon". He died in 1995 at age 42, from complications of AIDS.

Life and career Thomas McGinty was born in the outskirts of Glasgow on 1 April 1952, to Thomas and Mary McGinty (née O'Hara), both of whom had previously lived in Ireland. Thom was of Scottish-Irish nationality: at least one of his parents were of Irish origin – Mary was born in Baltinglass, County Wicklow – which granted him Irish citizenship. He had a brother and two sisters; the family would holiday each summer in Mary's hometown. which was located first in an arcade on Grafton Street, Dublin, and then on South Anne Street.

When the Gardaí (police) told him to move along for causing an obstruction in the street when crowds gathered to watch him, McGinty developed what he called a "zen walk", Most of his costumes were exuberant and fanciful, and he appeared in such guises as the framed Mona Lisa, or Dracula, or as a light bulb, teapot, or clown. McGinty called himself a "stillness artist" and "a human statue".

His first public performances in Dublin were as the "Dandelion Clown" at the Dandelion Market, a former bohemian market on St. Stephen's Green. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he became well-known and popular for performances on Grafton Street where he worked as a mime artist or otherwise performed in costume, to advertise the Diceman shop.

In 1989, he appeared in the Gate Theatre production of Oscar Wilde's Salome, directed by Steven Berkoff, which transferred to the Edinburgh Festival He was a guest, twice, on the television chat programme, The Late Late Show, in the mid-1980s and again in 1994.

McGinty was considered an honorary Dubliner despite his Glasgow accent and origins. –a viewpoint echoed by The Irish Times.

Death and tributes

McGinty was diagnosed with HIV in 1990. At Halloween 1994, a tribute and benefit event was held in his honour at the Olympia Theatre at which he was crowned High King of Ireland, and money was raised to buy medicines, and to pay for his funeral. Two weeks later, he openly discussed his struggle with AIDS on The Late Late Show, an appearance considered by TheJournal.ie to have been "a brave move at a time when few people were prepared to admit in public that they had caught the AIDS virus".

The poet Brendan Kennelly wrote a tribute to McGinty in the course of which he said, "Thom McGinty's magic has to do with his ability to mesmerise his audience, to lure them out of their busy city selves and to take them away into that land of perfect stillness where marvellous dreams are as normal as Bewley's sticky buns." A plaque in memory of McGinty was unveiled at the Baltinglass courthouse during the Baltinglass Street Festival on 27 August 2010. There is another plaque dedicated to him in Tralee, on the footpath in Denny Street at the corner of Castle Street where he performed during the Rose of Tralee festival.