Abstract
Through a case-based analysis of gay youth organising in Ireland, this chapter broadens the current legalistic narrative of Irish gay history by repositioning gay Irish youths into national and gay Irish history. Focusing on Ireland’s first gay youth organisation, the NGF Gay Youth Group, McDonagh and Kerrigan argue that political action and mobilisation were not the only factors in bringing about both institutional and cultural change. Instead, we maintain that social events within gay youth subcultures, often characterised as apolitical and inconsequential, were also engines of social transformation. We further contend that heterosexual allies, specifically parents of gay youths, were central to the gay Irish youth movement, specifically around platforming gay youth issues in the Irish media and lobbying for institutional change.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ayoub, Phillip M. When States Come Out: Europe’s Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Byrne, Lindsey Earner. “Reinforcing the Family: The Role of Gender, Morality and Sexuality in Irish Welfare Policy, 1922–1944.” The History of the Family 13, no. 4 (2008): 360–69.
Connolly, Linda and Niamh Hourigan, eds. Social Movements and Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.
Connolly, Linda. The Irish Women’s Movement: From Revolution to Devolution. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002.
Crone, Joni. “Lesbians: The Lavender Women of Ireland.” In Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland: Towards the Twenty-First Century, edited by Íde O’Carroll and Eoin Collins, 60–71. London: Cassell, 1995.
Dublin Lesbian and Gay Men’s Collectives, ed. Out for Ourselves: The Lives of Irish Lesbians & Gay Men. Dublin: Women’s Community Press, 1986.
Ferriter, Diarmaid. Occasions of Sin: Sex & Society in Modern Ireland. London: Profile Books, 2012.
Filax, Gloria. Queer Youth in the Province of the Severely Normal. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006.
Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire. Private Members’ Business—Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill, 1993: Second Stage, Wednesday, June 23,1993. Dáil Éireann Debate, 432.7.
Grey, Antony. Quest for Justice: Towards Homosexual Emancipation. London: Random House, 1992.
Hug, Chrystel. The Politics of Sexual Morality in Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
IGLYO. “About Us.” Accessed December 22, 2017. https://iglyo.wildapricot.org/About-Us.
In Touch 1, no. 1 (1979).
In Touch 5, no. 1 (December/January 1981).
Inglis, Tom. Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press, 1998.
Irish Independent. “Row Over Gay Group’s Grant.” October 14, 1982.
Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Kamikaze, Izzy. “I Used to Be an Activist, But I’m Alright Now.” In Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland: Towards the Twenty-First Century, edited by Íde O’Carroll and Eoin Collins, 110–19. London: Cassell, 1995.
Keogh, Dermot. Twentieth-Century Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2005.
Kerrigan, Páraic. “OUT-ing AIDS: The Irish Civil Gay Rights Movement’s Response to the AIDS Crisis (1984–1988).” Media History 25, no. 2: 244–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2017.1367652.
Kerrigan, Páraic. “Respectably Gay: Homodomesticity in Ireland’s First Public Broadcast of a Homosexual Couple.” In LGBTQs, Media and Culture in Europe, edited by Alexander Dhoest, Lukasz Szulc, and Bart Eeckhout, 13–28. London: Routledge, 2017.
Lynch, Edmund. A Different Country. Dublin: It’s a Wrap Productions, 2017.
Marshall, Daniel. “Young Gays: Towards a History of Youth, Queer Sexualities and Education in Australia.” La Trobe Journal 87 (2011): 60–73.
McDonagh, Patrick James. “‘Homosexuals Are Revolting’—Gay & Lesbian Activism in the Republic of Ireland 1970s–1990s.” Studi Irlandesi: A Journal of Irish Studies 7 (2017): 65–91.
Moloney, Derek. Edmund Lynch Irish LGBT Oral History Project, August 31, 2013.
Moore, Phil. Edmund Lynch Irish LGBT Oral History Project, July 18, 2013.
Moore, Phil. “The Parents of Gay Children.” In Out for Ourselves: The Lives of Irish Lesbians and Gay Men, edited by the Dublin Lesbian and Gay Collectives, 132–44. Dublin: Women’s Community Press, 1986.
National Library of Ireland (NLI), IR 369 I 23. In Touch: Journal of National Gay Federation 1, no. 3 (November/December 1979).
NLI, Irish Queer Archives (IQA), MS 45, 957/1: Letter from George Birmingham, Minister of State to Tonie Walsh, President of NGF, 15 May 1985.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 936/3: Constitution of the National Gay Federation presented at the first annual general meeting of NGF held on 31 May 1980.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 949/4: Letter from Bernard Keogh, NGF General Secretary to Willie McConkey, TAF Director, 18 December 1979.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 951/4: Irish Gay Rights Movement Newsletter, February 1976.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 956/1: Letter from Bernard Keogh, NGF General Secretary to Anne Keogh, Student Counsellor, Trinity College, 4 March 1980.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 956/3: Letter from David Meredith, Director of National Youth Council of Ireland to Tonie Walsh, General Secretary of the NGF, 24 October 1985.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 957/4: Letter from Paul Gorry, Working Committee of Lesbian and Gay Youth Federation of Ireland, to friends, n.d.
NLI, IQA, MS 45, 999/14: NGF Press Release.
NLI, IR 369 07: OUT, June/July 1985.
NLI, Personal Papers of David Norris, Acc. 6672 Box 36: ‘Working Paper on Gay Youth Group by Bernard Keogh, September 1979’.
Norris, David. David Norris—A Kick Against the Pricks: The Autobiography. Dublin: Transworld, 2012.
O’Meara, Kathleen. “Parents Have Nothing to Do with It.” The Irish Times, August 31, 1984.
Rose, Kieran. Diverse Communities: The Evolution of Lesbian and Gay Politics in Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press, 1994.
RTÉ. Access Community Television. Dublin: RTÉ Productions, 1984.
RTÉ. Last House. Dublin: RTÉ Productions, 1975.
RTÉ. The Late Late Show. Dublin: RTÉ Productions, 1989.
Ryan, Paul. “Coming Out of the Dark: A Decade of Gay Mobilisation in Ireland, 1970–1980.” In Social Movements and Ireland, edited by Linda Connolly and Niamh Hourigan, 86–106. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.
Ryan, Paul. Asking Angela Macnamara: An Intimate History of Irish Lives. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2012.
Sheehan, Brian. Edmund Lynch Irish LGBT Oral History Project, April 26, 2013.
The Irish Times. “Grant to Gay Group Attacked.” October 14, 1982.
The Irish Times. “The Gay with Parents.” September 5, 1980.
The Irish Times. “What’s on This Weekend.” May 11, 1985.
Walshe, Éibhear. “Invisible Irelands: Kate O’Brien’s Lesbian and Gay Social Formations in London and Ireland in the Twentieth Century.” Queerscope Articles 1, no. 6 (2006): 39–48.
Warner, Michael, ed. Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McDonagh, P.J., Kerrigan, P. (2021). “Cherishing All the Children of the Nation Equally”: Gay Youth Organisation and Activism in Ireland. In: Marshall, D. (eds) Queer Youth Histories. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56550-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56550-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56549-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56550-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)