LOOKING BACK GOING FORWARD

Earlier this year, a series of workshops were held in UCD to examine LGBTQ+ activism in Ireland from 1973 to 2023. Using the past to navigate the future, Mary McAuliffe and Ruth Baldacchino reflect on the findings from the April events.

Activism — Event — Ireland

In October 1973, a group of young students, feminist and queer activists gathered in a room in Trinity College Dublin, with the intention of forming a sexual liberation movement (SLM). Among those present were poet and activist Mary Dorcey, filmmaker Edmund Lynch, campaigner and former senator David Norris, and feminist activist Ruth Riddick. Dorcey has often spoken of the passionate atmosphere at that meeting, shaped by global currents of feminist thought, sexual liberation, and the student rights movement. Inspired by the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, feminist writings on consciousness-raising, concepts of self-determined sexuality, and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain in 1967, these Irish activists saw themselves as part of a broader wave of change.

But Ireland in 1973 was still in a slow transformation. Women and girls could be and were incarcerated in Magdalen Laundries, gay male sex was criminalised, and the only acceptable form of female sexuality was marital, domestic and reproductive.

In After the Train, recently published by UCD Press, Dorcey recalled the first symposium of the SLM in 1974: “A packed room listened to Dr Noel Browne TD and British activist Babs Todd echo our call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Browne told us, to rousing cheers from the audience, that homosexuality had just been removed from the American list of psychiatric illnesses. It is difficult to overstate the furiously hostile attitude then to ‘queers’ and the near impossible task of finding people who would publicly advocate any position on the subject of sex, other than ‘the missionary’. But for a group of 20 or so young, gay activists wreaking havoc on a dreary conformist Dublin, the world seemed to change overnight.”

That meeting in Trinity College sparked a social movement that would fundamentally transform Irish society. Other catalysts were more traumatic when, less than a decade later, the horrific murder of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park in 1982 ignited public outrage and led to the first Pride parade in Dublin. The 1988 European Court of Human Rights’ landmark ruling in Norris v. Ireland declared criminalisation of male homosexuality a human rights violation, leading to its repeal in 1993.

Across five decades, campaigns for LGBTQ+ equality, visibility and civil rights have reshaped Irish public life. In the 1980s, issues such as AIDS activism, employment inequality, and demands for the recognition of homophobia and transphobia as hate crimes came to the fore. By the early 2000s, LGBTQ+ groups were receiving significant government funding, and movements for civil partnership and marriage equality had gained ground. In 2015, Ireland became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote. That same year, the Gender Recognition Act was passed.

Yet, 2025 has become a moment not only of celebration, but of reckoning. This year marks a decade since the Marriage Equality vote, a moment when it seemed Irish society had reached a point of true inclusion. It is also a year shadowed by rising transphobia, a global backlash against gender diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusion, and a growing fatigue within institutions once seen as allies. This has made clear how fragile progress can be.

In this context, UCD Gender Studies, in partnership with the National LGBT Federation (NXF) and with the support of Research Ireland funding, hosted two workshops under the banner LGBT Activism in Ireland, 1973-2023: Looking Back, Going Forward.

The first workshop, ‘History of LGBT Activism in Ireland’, brought together some of the most significant figures in Irish queer history. Speakers included poet Mary Dorcey; feminist and queer activist Ger Moane; feminist, queer activist and academic Ailbhe Smyth; historian, archivist, and chronicler of the Hirschfield Centre Tonie Walsh; long-time activist in queer civil society in Ireland and internationally Patricia Prendiville; historian and biographer of Eva Gore-Booth, Sonja Tiernan; founder of the Cork LGBT Archive Orla Egan; media scholar and queer cultural historian Páraic Kerrigan; and trans rights activist and long-time community leader Sara Phillips.

They spoke about the long, hard work of campaigning from the 1970s through to the 1990s. These activists dealt with an often antagonist government and a homophobic society. They worked hard, campaigned in the face of adversity, dealt with divisions within queer communities (with lesbians and trans people often forgotten), and constant personal risk. Yet, they also recalled the joy and solidarity in building community— of the friendships formed, of a vibrant urban social scene and of organisations that gave them community, power and joy. These activists didn’t just demand rights, they created spaces for support, resistance and belonging. At great personal cost, they laid the groundwork for much of what exists today.

The second workshop, ‘Where We’re Going – Backlash, Solidarity, and Mobilising’, opened with a harsh reality: the UK Supreme Court had, that same day, handed down a regressive ruling defining ‘woman’ in biological terms. This moment certainly focused the minds sharply on the impact of gender critical ideologies and rising transphobia across jurisdictions. It also copper-fastened the need for solidarity within the LGBTQ+ community and served as a stark reminder of how quickly hard-won rights can be reinterpreted or revoked, underscoring the urgency of the discussions ahead.

The opening panel, ‘The State of LGBTIQ+ Rights in Ireland Today’, brought together voices working at the frontline of advocacy: Paula Fagan (LGBT Ireland), Scott Cuthbertson (The Rainbow Project, NI), and Sinéad Keane (Belong To). Despite the existence of Ireland’s National LGBTI+ Inclusion Strategy, there is an increasing sense that political will is waning.

Paula Fagan described the government’s reluctance to ban so-called ‘conversion practices’ despite clear calls from civil society. Scott Cuthbertson noted that such harmful practices remain active and largely unchallenged in Northern Ireland, calling for cross-border collaboration and an all-island strategy to protect vulnerable LGBTQ+ individuals from ideological and psychological abuse masked as therapy or care. Sinéad Keane brought a vital youth perspective to the conversation. She described how young queer and trans people are increasingly navigating systems— from schools to healthcare—that are riddled with misinformation, hesitation, and exclusion.

The next session, ‘Intersectionality, Advocacy & Collective Action’, explored the intersection of identities and oppression. Dr Tanya Ní Mhuirthile (DCU) reflected on the promises and shortcomings of the Gender Recognition Act. While celebrated in 2015, crucial aspects were immediately diluted. Depathologisation was not fully realised, recognition for young people was obstructed, and the removal of the single-status requirement remained unfulfilled.

This tension between written rights and lived experience was echoed by Bulelani Mfaco (MASI), who spoke powerfully about asylum seekers and the layers of control embedded in the State’s international protection system. Policy language may appear neutral, but it conceals structures of exclusion, control and suspicion. Many who come to Ireland fleeing persecution face new forms of surveillance and exclusion, often disguised as administrative procedure.

Artist and filmmaker Pradeep Mahadeshwar and GCN Editor Alice Linehan turned attention to the role of art and media. Both reflected how mainstream coverage often fails marginalised communities, erasing or rendering them objects of sensationalism and debate.

Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI)’s Daire Dempsey focused on trans healthcare, which they described as being in a state of institutional abandonment. Many trans people are losing faith in the State’s capacity to provide adequate and timely care. In response, community-led and non-institutional care networks are stepping in where institutions fail. Daire also spoke about the broader structures of violence that shape these failures, connecting the State’s treatment of trans people with colonial, economic, and geopolitical systems of control. They drew global parallels linking trans struggles in Ireland and international liberation movements, including solidarity with Palestinian resistance, arguing that our understanding of justice must be expansive, intersectional, and global in scope.

The final session, ‘Strengthening Solidarity and Mobilisation’, brought together Chris Noone (NXF), Morr O’Malley (Trans Health Action), Paula Fagan, and Scott Cuthbertson. Chris spoke of the NXF’s internal transformation, diversifying leadership, building the trust of communities long excluded from mainstream LGBTQ+ organising spaces, and showing up beyond tokenism. Solidarity, he emphasised, is not a one-time gesture but an ongoing, often uncomfortable practice.

Morr O’Malley reminded us that solidarity is not rhetorical; it requires action. “If you’re a bi [cis] person meeting with the health ministry, you need to know how to talk about trans healthcare. You carry that fight with you.”

Scott pushed for intra-community solidarity by pointing out that queer people are not a monolith. “We are part of every community—migrants, asylum seekers, sex workers,” he said. Disagreements within movements, he noted, should not be feared. It’s how movements grow. Paula closed the session with a reminder that solidarity also means stepping back—offering time, space and resources.

The day ended not with closure but with commitment. The conversations were intense and unfinished, just as they should be in moments of reckoning, with a shared sense that more must be done—and done together.

Across both workshops, one truth was clear: our past is more than memory, it is strategy. We inherit a legacy of resistance, joy, risk and reinvention. Our present is unstable, shaped by backlash and institutional lethargy. But it is also alive with connection, creativity, courage and care. Our future must be shaped by radical joy, collective refusal and a politics of no one left behind. If it is to be just, it must be queer, defiant and built from the ground up, by and for all of us.

All panels were recorded and will be available from historyhub.ie.