February will see the debut of Northern Ireland’s first LGBT+ History Festival, which aims to empower the community to learn more about our own history, as well as educating those outside the community.

OUTing the Past will be launched by Belfast’s Lord Mayor Cllr. Nuala McAllister on February 16, with speeches by Cllr JeffDudgeon, the man responsible for taking the case against Northern Ireland to have male homosexuality decriminalised in 1982, and Senator David Norris.

On Saturday is the festival’s conference component, which takes place in the Ulster Museum. Short papers will be presented with discussions afterwards - everything from trans personnel in the British Army to gay and lesbian people in ancient Gaelic Ireland will be explored.

Here’s the full line-up for Saturday, February 17:

10am Cork LGBT Activism and Cork-Belfast Collaborations, with Orla Egan

The previously hidden history of LGBT+ Activism in Cork and the development of the Cork LGBT Community.

10.30am Queers Dancing with the ‘Terrorists’, with JGM Evans A rare insight into an event in the early 1980s when the first UK Student LGBT+ Conference (NUS LGBT) was picketed by Rev. Ian Paisley’s Save Ulster from Sodomy Campaign.

11.00am LGBT Emigration Northern Ireland, post-1967, with Nadine Gilmore

Oral history interviews found in various archives throughout the UK, as well as a number of interviews conducted with members of the gay community in Belfast.

11.30am ‘Gay’ Behaviour in Gaelic Ireland: AD500-1600, with Brian Lacey

The diverse evidence of homosexual relations and practices in medieval Gaelic Irish culture – c.AD 500-1600.

12.00pm PSNI and Garda Síochána

A collaboration between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and An Garda Síochaná on LGBT+ history in Ireland.

12.30pm Soldiers in Love, with Peter Roscoe

This presentation explores approximately 300 love letters between Infantryman Gordon Bowsher to Gunner Gilbert Bradley, sent before and during World War Two.

1.30pm Cara-Friend & Lesbian Line: Combating Isolation, with Mary McKee

How Cara-Friend and Lesbian Line fought to combat isolation of queer people in Ireland between the 1970s and 1990s.

2.00pm The AIDS Epidemic in Ireland and Northern Ireland, with Tonie Walsh

GCN’s founder, Tonie Walsh talks about his personal experience of AIDS in Ireland in the 1980s and ’90s.

2.30pm ‘Out of the Shadows’: 21 years in Merseyside Police, with Tracy O’Hara

Personal story of serving as a gay detective in Merseyside police for 21 years.

3.00pm DYEP: Trans Personnel in the Armed Forces to 2009, with Emma Vickers

The historical experiences of trans personnel in the British Armed Forces before 2009.

3.30pm Sound and Vision, with Kate Hutchinson

Looking at the history of media portrayal and representation of the trans community.

For more information, visit outingthepast.org.uk