Shirley Temple Bar

Shirley Temple Bar
Born Declan Buckley
Dublin, Ireland
Website
www.shirleytemplebar.com

Shirley Temple Bar is the drag queen persona of Declan Buckley, an Irish television personality and drag queen from Dublin, Ireland. The name is a play on both Shirley Temple and a cultural area of Dublin city called Temple Bar. Shirley featured on several documentaries for Irish and British television, an Irish language programme by broadcaster TG4 was nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award in 2003.

A 1997 winner of the Alternative Miss Ireland competition which helped ignite Shirley's career,[1][2] Shirley hosts a weekly bingo and drag show in Dublin's largest gay bar, The George, with fellow drag queens Veda, Davina Devine and Dolly Grip.[3]

In 2001, Shirley Temple Bar caused a stir when she took over the National Lottery gameshow, Telly Bingo, on Irish television. In 2004, Buckley began to present the show as himself.[4][5]

References

  1. Mullally, Una (15 October 2011). "'Gay Christmas' is cancelled. So long, Alternative Miss Ireland". The Irish Times. Retrieved 15 October 2011. The contest ignited the careers of Shirley Temple Bar and Katherine Lynch and has featured judges as diverse as Twink, David Norris, Marc Almond, Nell McCafferty, Ivana Bacik and Brendan Courtney.
  2. "A dress rehearsal for life". Irish Independent. Retrieved 3 June 2009.
  3. "Bingo with Shirley Temple Bar". The George. 6 November 2011.
  4. Millar, Scott (21 November 2004). "It's a drag being Shirley says RTÉ's ‘new’ lotto host". The Sunday Times.
  5. "The man and the mask; Ger Philpott meets the guys behind three of the Dublin drag scene's most glamorous gals". The Irish Times. 17 August 1999. p. 10. Dubliner Declan Buckley, aged 30, aka Shirley Temple-Bar, studied marketing at DCU. He came to drag later than his colleagues. "The first time I properly did drag was for the Alternative Miss Ireland contest in 1997." He won the title. "Shirley Temple-Bar is a simplistic, girl-next-door type, not a glamour puss. Hers is a character-driven look. She's 14 years old, a schoolgirl from the Coombe," Declan says. "She's drawn from old memories anyone brought up in Dublin would have. The things old people talk about. Like going to Boyers' restaurant for tea and cakes with your granny.

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