Colin Tierney on Tipp FM – 12th June 2023

Fran: A group of punters were left horrified after a naked couple strolled into a pub in Somerset, and staff were happy to serve them. Naturists Neil Cox and, Danielle Quiggin visited the railway bar in Barnum on Sea near Bristol last week, to enjoy a quick naked pint. And on the same evening, the couple took a naked stroll along the harborside with, nobody seeming to question them. Now some customers at the pub were baffled with the staff’s decision to serve them because they were naked. Well, 76 year old Colin Tierney has been a naturist for more than 70 years, and he joins me now. Colin, good morning to you.
Colin: Good morning, Fran.
Fran: And really good to talk to you today, Colin. What did you make of that? The couple going into to a pub, it wasn’t a naturist pub, it was an ordinary pub. They were naked and ordering a pint.
Colin: That’s not something that I would do, but I think the media have misled the public to a great extent. Before they went to the pub, they actually arranged with the pub their business.
Fran: Ah, okay.
Colin: Okay. They they telephoned beforehand and explained that there were naturists and that they would like to come and dine and would that be okay. The pub, told them that they would bring them back and confirm the booking one way or another. And the pub managers or the owners having examined the whole situation and made inquiries of the local police force were informed that what the 2 people were doing was quite legal and that if they wanted to serve them in that way they could So they did that.
Fran: Well, you’re right. We were all misled on this because my idea was that they they just strolled into the pub naked, which I would imagine would have been a great shock to everybody involved.
Colin: It would have been. Yeah.
Fran: Yes.
Colin: It is something that no naturists would ever do is to just stroll into a pub, not without having confirmed it beforehand. But if you are the the law in the UK, similar to the law here in Ireland, and it’s quite specific. The law was changed in 2017 here in Ireland and the original act which was the 1935 Criminal Law Amendment Act Section 18, anybody who was naked in public was causing an offense. But in 2017, that’s actually, Section 45 of that act, of the new Act 2017, the state says a person who exposes his/her genitals intending to cause fear, distress, or alarm to another person is guilty of an offense. Now they’re very important words.
Fran: Right. But but there is an element of semantics to it. Are you saying to me, Colin, that if I’m not sort of deliberately trying to cause offense, I could stroll naked up through O’Connor Street in Clonmel?
Colin: You could. Okay. Legally, you can.
Fran: Right.
Colin: But there again, what one has got to use their noggin. It’s something that, one would do. You’ve got to be sensible about things as well, and there are certain, you know,
Fran: But as you say, common sense will be the thing as well. My my
Colin: Exactly. Yeah.
Fran: My only fear, Colin, would have probably around if I don’t know whether or not there were families in the pub in Somerset, but, you know, if I had little children, I might have an issue with that.
Colin: Why?
Fran: I don’t know I’m sure that says more about me, Colin, than it does about anything else. I’m not sure.
Colin: You know, children were not born, with any shame about nudity.
Fran: Sure Yeah.
Colin: Children are conditioned in that way. And it’s actually, a great deal of research has gone into children and, naturism in the UK by doctor Keon West. He is, you know, a professor at university in London, and, he’s done quite a lot of research on it. And he has found that the children of naturist families are far more adjusted. There’s less, criminal, so to say, intention. And they’re far more in tune with themselves, in tune with nature, in tune with their own bodies. They don’t have hang ups about, you know, their bodies, which is, in actual fact, causing an awful lot of distress.
Fran: It’s a very good point. And I have to hold my hands up here and say I’m completely repressed where all of this is concerned, Colin, because I remember in Iceland at one stage, I was in a spa situation. I went into the dressing room, and I couldn’t get everybody was strolling around naked, not a bothering everybody. And here was I like a fool with my towel around me in trying to sort of feel you know
Colin: Sorry. I just cut across you.
Fran: Yeah. Of course.
Colin: It’s exactly the same in Holland, in Germany. Yeah. In Germany, you go into, one of the spa treatment facilities in Germany, and the majority of them are completely nude. You won’t be allowed into the facilities if you’re not, if you’re not nude.
Fran: It’s interesting, is there something about us Irish, Colin? Because you describe yourself, I know, as one of the oldest, naturists in Ireland. So you’ve been doing this for about 70 years, you were but is there something about the Irish that were particularly, is modest the word or repressed or whatever?
Colin: The naked body is not in itself immodest.
Fran: Immodest. Yeah.
Colin: It’s the, minds of the people, you know I won’t say viewing it. You know the naked body is in no way impure or immodest.
Fran: Yeah.
Colin: And I think I mentioned to you previously, Pope John Paul, Saint John Paul now, he has written quite extensively both while he was the cardinal and later as the Pope. He has written quite extensively on the love and responsibility. He’s got articles in oh, the name of his article doesn’t come to my mind, Yeah. But he has written aboutit and his, statements, say that there is nothing impure or improper about the naked body.
Fran: Isn’t that very interesting? Because lots of people would blame our Catholic background, for this sort of, you know I don’t you know, our thoughts on people being naked, you know, that it’s
Colin: I think the, you know, the clergy were quite strict about it because the majority of people, especially when they’re talking about naturism, the first thing that comes into one’s mind is sex.
Fran: Yes. Of course. Yeah.
Colin: Naturism has absolutely nothing to do with sex. Naturism is the same as, you know, some people will wear a suit, when I was a young man and working, I had to wear a suit going to work. I can remember one day, one of my colleagues coming in, and he had the most magnificent, which were high to the fashion and very expensive at the time, cavalry twill trousers and the most beautiful jacket. His outfit would have I had the suit on me, and his outfit would have cost maybe 2, 3 times the price of my suit.
Fran: Yes.
Colin: And, the manager came back to him and told him, go home. Put your suit on, and then come back to work.
Fran: My god.
Colin: Yeah. And he was magnificently dressed. So dress is only, you know, an impression.
Fran: Sure. And very subjective too, of course, it is. Yeah.
Colin: Yeah. The naked body is actually, your god given dress.
Fran: Right. And and then to somebody like me who would turn the other way in the bath almost at times, what is it? What I mean, what makes you be a naturist? What’s special about it, Colin?
Colin: It’s just the actual, the feeling of freedom. It’s the health benefits of it. Well, I was, you know, brought up in that way. My parents were fairly liberal even though they were very devout Catholics they were still very liberal and my brother and myself they used to tell you go play in the sand because we lived near the seaside for a long time and you know it’s just a liberation. Can you imagine you know you wear swimsuit or swimming togs or whatever when you go in swimming but then you come out and you lie in the sand and they’re all cold and they’re clingy and they’re
Fran: Yeah.
Colin: And sand sticks to them. You know the picture. And, you know, not having swimming togs on, the sand, you dry quicker and the sand just falls off you. You don’t have the same unpleasantness.
Fran: Yes.
Colin: As you do with the swim. And, you know, females, majority of them, I was on the beach there recently with, my family. And, the majority of the females on the beach had, bikinis on them, and they were so small that
Fran: Yes.
Colin: Yeah. They would have been less sexy looking without the swimwear, without the skimpy bikinis. You know?
Fran: Yeah. It’s interesting. And when you’re out for a day with your family on the beach, would you would you all be naked?
Colin: No.
Fran: No.
Colin: No. We were when the kids were younger Yeah. Out of the people in there, they’ve all got their own families and that. When they were younger, we used to holiday in France quite a lot, and we used to make it, you know, nude beaches in France. And, you know, majority everybody was naked on the beach, you know. So they have to you know, they have been on nude beaches and that but I think usually with most teenagers as they go into 13 and that they lose that Yes.
Fran: And, Colin, does it surprise you that in 2023, this incident in the pub in Somerset has made international headlines?
Colin: If it had been reported, I think it was one of the daily newspapers reported it.
Fran: Yeah. And it was picked up all over the place. Yeah?
Colin: It was. Yeah. But, they mentioned about all the adverse reviews that the pub was given. I have gone through about 20 websites that specialize in reviewing hotels and pubs and that. And TripAdvisor was the one that was mentioned most. I came across one item in TripAdvisor that, the lady who was supposed to have castigated the pub.
Fran: Yes.
Colin: All she said was that she was uncomfortable. I haven’t come across one adverse report.
Fran: She just said she was uncomfortable.
Colin: She said she was uncomfortable, and she gave the pub 4 and a half stars out of 5.
Fran: Oh, wow. okay. So this this was played up.
Colin: I’ve got numerous reviews. Well, I’ve got 6 reviews here from different people. That’s all I could find and that was between the 2nd June and yesterday. There were only 6 reviews. And that one the lady saying that she was uncomfortable, the lady called Diane, That was the only one that was any way adverse. The rest were all congratulating the pub and the friendly staff and one says the naturist couple walked in, no problem and get a thumbs up. And Michael Harding from Bristol was in the pub and he says, great food, not bothered at all at all by the naturist couple, will certainly be back. You know, they’re they’re all in that line.
Fran: Yeah. It’s interesting. But you’re even still even still in this country, Colin, I mean, we have conversations over the years, you know, about even breast feeding, you know, where people take exception to to women breastfeeding for god’s sake.
Colin: Yeah. Well, that just shows you Yeah. How nice it, you know, people are Yeah. That breastfeeding is one of the most natural things in the world. Yeah. The other day, the government recommend it.
Fran: Of course. Yeah.
Colin: The HSE are trying to get more and more people to to breastfeed their kids.
Fran: Yes. And you still have people taking exception to it.
Colin: Yeah. But why?
Fran: I don’t I don’t know.
Colin: You see, but I don’t know if they do it still, but, guys on, building sites and, you know, men on the beach, all are bare breasted. And what’s the difference between some male breast and female breast?
Fran: So is naturism is it on the increase, or is it sort of plateaued, so to speak, Colin?
Colin: Oh, no. It’s very much on the increase.
Fran: Is it indeed?
Colin: Yeah. It’s one of the biggest, tourism outlets in the world at the moment. The number of tourist facilities, especially France is the country I know best, because it’s the nearest to us. And there are more naturist campsites and absolutely huge campsites in France. Spain is the same. Spain, there was actually a group of Irish naturists in Spain on a holiday there in May, and our group consisted of 72 people.
Fran: Wow. Wow. Well, isn’t it interesting? Well, Colin, it was a delight to talk to you today, and we appreciate you taking our call, and thank you so much.
Colin: Thank you, Fran.
Fran: Thank you. Good morning to you. That’s, Colin Tierney there who considers himself one of the oldest naturists in Ireland.

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Fran: Now Mary was on, and she said that she hopes that Fran won’t go down that particular road. She said she doesn’t want, to see his battered sausage when she’s going shopping in Clonmel. I assure you, Mary. I’m extremely prudish, so I won’t be prancing around in the nude, whatever Colin might say to us, this morning. But just to reiterate what I said earlier on about I was completely and absolutely shocked in Iceland. I couldn’t over it. People were so natural about prancing around in the nude. And there were, a group of Irish lads there with the towels around them and red faces on them and stuff as well. So it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it.