Inside SLM

In 2023, GCN launched a series profiling the legacies of the founding members of Ireland’s Sexual Liberation Movement (SLM). For the final instalment, Ethan Moser takes a look back on the incredible, albeit tragically short, life of Margaret McWilliam.

Often misremembered by the surname McWilliams, Margaret began her career in LGBTQ+ activism in the early 1970s. She appeared at Ireland’s first conference on human sexuality at the New University of Coleraine in October of 1973 as a representative of Sappho, an English lesbian social club that had been established the year prior.

It was at Coleraine that McWilliam first met Edmund Lynch and Peter Bradley, both students at Trinity College Dublin. The three would be amongst the first to plan a meeting to discuss campaigning for gay rights on Trinity’s campus in the weeks following the Coleraine conference.

In February 1974, McWilliam made history when she appeared on a Radio Éireann broadcast, alongside fellow SLM co-founder Hugo McManus, to discuss their newlyminted movement. This marked the first time in Irish history that openly LGBTQ+ voices were broadcast over the radio and marked the beginning of visibility for gays and lesbians in the nation’s media.

In 1978, McWilliam once again joined forces with Edmund Lynch and David Norris, as well as with Joni Crone of The Late Late Show fame, to found the National Gay Federation, or NGF, now known as the National LGBT Federation (NXF). The NXF is Ireland’s oldest LGBTQ+ NGO, and it continues to campaign for the community to this day. It is also the proud publisher of GCN.

Together, the founders of the NGF opened the Hirschfeld Centre at 10 Fawnes Street in Temple Bar in April of 1979. Named after German Sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, it was a hub for queer community and activism. The centre, however, was short-lived, coming to an abrupt end in 1987 following a devastating fire. Irish Senator Joe O’Toole would later go on to say that there was strong evidence suggesting that the fire had been started with malicious intent to destroy the centre.

After co-founding the NGF, McWilliam would go on to serve on the editorial team for GCN from Issue 14 (January 1990) until Issue 38 (March 1992). During this time, McWilliam worked under a number of editorial titles, including Production Editor, Sub-Editor, Arts Editor, Contributor, and Journalist.

Prior to joining GCN’s editorial staff, McWilliam’s first article appeared in Issue 13 of the publication — a review of the play The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, which was playing at Dublin’s Gate Theatre in November of 1989.

Over the course of her career with GCN, McWilliam primarily wrote literary reviews, including a review of Mary Dorcey’s book A Noise from the Woodshed.

“I have no doubt that Mary Dorcey is a writer of importance,” McWilliam mused. “When the soi-disant arbiters of literary tastes in this country come to recognise it, is quite another matter.”

While McWilliam passed tragically young in the 1990s, her legacy lives on in contemporary queer Irish life, with institutions like the NXF and GCN owing their history to her incredible work.

“We owe it to ourselves,” McWilliam once wrote, “and to those following us, to ensure that we are not, yet again, written out of history.” And so it is, with honour, that we conclude our profiles on the legendary founders of SLM with the legacy of Margaret McWilliam.