David Norris is an Irish scholar, independent Senator and civil rights activist. Internationally, Norris is credited with having "managed, almost single-handedly, to overthrow the anti-homosexuality law which brought about the downfall of Oscar Wilde", a feat he achieved in 1988 after a fourteen-year campaign.

David Norris brought his case for the decriminalisation of homosexuality to the High Court, where it was rejected, and then to the Supreme Court, where he was represented by Mary Robinson, and where it was also rejected, in 1983. That year the killers of a Dublin man, Declan Flynn, murdered in Fairview Park the previous year, were given suspended sentences. The resulting outrage led to marches, public protests and an increasing sense of political confidence for Irish lesbian and gay groups. This became the first Pride March in Ireland.

Referring to the name of the march, activist Tonie Walsh acknowledged that pride wasn’t mentioned at all – but described the Gay Rights Protest March as a way to channel pride through a sense of outrage.

Walsh described the LGBT Pride movement as making “slow but visible progress” from the 1980s onwards.