Buzz O’Neill, a well-known club promoter in Dublin, was the subject of a brutal homophobic attack outside The George venue in the city centre last night. O’Neill had spent the evening in the gay bar but was attacked when he left the club.

The promoter, who is behind some of Dublin’s most popular gay clubs like F.A.G., which was set up along with fellow club owner Panti, had just said goodbye to a friend when he was verbally abused by a passenger in a taxi on George’s Street, according to Gay Community News.

“I kissed my friend goodbye on the corner of the laneway, beside the dry cleaners and there was a taxi stopped beside me,” O’Neill explained. “One of the guys in it shouted ‘f**king faggot’ out the window. I told him to ‘f**k off’, and he spat at me out of the taxi.”

The picture that Buzz tweeted from his own twitter account

The man who was shouting abuse at Mr. O’Neill proceeded to get out of the taxi, with three of his friends, and began a vicious attack. A doorman from the George intervened and managed to stop them.

“I’m very shaken by it,” says O’Neill. “It’s terrible that in this day and age this can happen. We think that we’ve moved on and that things are better for gay people in Ireland. It’s awful to think that this can happen over sexuality, that me kissing a friend of mine goodbye would send a group of guys into such a rage, that they would spit at me and attack me.”

O’Neill later took to his twitter account to thank the staff at the George for helping him.