Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality Before Liberation

Public knowledge of the history of homosexuality in Northern Ireland is mostly of the region's intolerance - from the outspoken Reverend Ian Paisley's 1970s campaign to 'Save Ulster from Sodomy' to more recent lags in legal equality. Academic work has focused on the gay rights movement as it emerged in the late 1960s, reflecting more broadly the dominance of political and 'rights-based' approaches during and since the Troubles (1968-1998). Only a few 'famous queers' - like the Unionist MP for East Belfast Edward de Cobain (charged with 'gross indecency' with teenage boys in the 1890s), or the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement (who cruised Edwardian Belfast and diarised his sexual experiences) - have become known.

But there is a longer and untold queer history of Northern Ireland. Men from across class and religious divides found sexual experiences in Belfast and the wider region - from the city's port, parks and streets, to the country houses of the Ulster Protestant elite, and even in small rural communities. Homosexuality was illegal and the subject of a British Isles-wide discourse of disgust, but these men still expressed their desires and - if only to a limited degree - found some acceptance too. If men who had sex with men have not been a major topic of interest in Northern Ireland, writing on women who desired other women is virtually absent. Unexplored collections of extensive private correspondence however, coupled with newspaper debate about gender norms, suggests there were also women who had understandings of same-sex love and companionship.

Drawing on under- or never-before used archives, this project will be the first to sensitively and critically reconstruct Northern Ireland's queer past from the late 19th century to the beginnings of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s. We focus on this period because: it saw a notable rise in arrests for male homosexual offences and the emergence of a wayward 'New Woman' discourse, with the creation of archival material as a result; and, like other places, Northern Ireland had an idiosyncratic experience of sexuality before the rise of an international gay rights movement signalled understandings that were shared.

Techniques of close-reading will unpick the witness statements used to prosecute men who had sex with men, showing how and where they met and had relationships. Private correspondence, letters and diaries will reveal understandings of identity and desire for both men and women. An intensive trawl of the euphemistic local press, now digitised, will show how homosexuality was publicly represented.

Academic articles and a monograph will situate Northern Irish sexuality in the broader literature of 'queer theory' and Irish Studies, while a 1-day colloquium and edited volume will place Northern Ireland's experience alongside the other 3 of the 4 nations of the United Kingdom.

Connecting our research findings with the LGBT community, we will inform organisations that educate and support in Northern Ireland. Participatory workshops, supported by the advocacy group Cara Friend, will introduce LGBT youth groups across the region to the history of their own community. A teaching resource will encourage schools to engage with the history of sexuality. An exhibition and programme of public talks and celebrations at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland will demonstrate the importance of queer history to Irish Studies. A commissioned docu-film and interpretive piece of music will bring our project's stories to life. Our website, with a digital map of queer interactions and monthly features, will communicate the project to the public.

Combining original academic research with focused public engagement work, this project will reveal a rich and 'hidden history' in the most striking of ways, and enhance both academic and non-academic understandings of sexuality in both Northern Ireland and the wider world.