Friday 26 September 2008
A new "hidden history" book about homosexuality in Ireland has
provided "an invaluable template" for gay people and future
researchers examining the subject.
Jeffrey Dudgeon, a founding member of the Northern Ireland Gay
Rights Association, was referring to Terrible Queer Creatures -
Homosexuality in Irish History at the publication's launch in
Dublin last night.
"Just as the women's movement sparked an interest in the hidden
history of women, so it is argued that the hidden history of
homosexuality has its role to play in the onward struggle for
freedom from ignorance and prejudice," Mr Dudgeon said.
Author Brian Lacey (59) said he believed it was one of the first
comprehensive works on the topic to date and the professional
archaeologist said it was written because he had collected
information on the subject over the years.
Afterwards, he remarked that the book was the kind of tome he would
have liked to have read when he came out as a teenager in Dublin in
the late 1960s.
Mr Lacey's mother, Nora (78), was at the launch and said she had
read the manuscript before it was printed.
"Brian was the first person that I knew who was gay, but it never
changed our relationship. The book is very, very well written and I
am very proud of him," she said.
'Terrible Queer Creatures’: A history of homosexuality in Ireland
Brian Lacey
The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ was as common in Ireland throughout all stages of its history as it was in other parts of the world. Under certain cultural and historical conditions the expression of homosexuality in Ireland, as elsewhere, became more accepted or, at least, more visible than at any other times.
This book attempts to describe some of that visibility from early Ireland to the late 20th century. But it is clear that, like an iceberg, a far greater part of the story remains, and will almost certainly always remain, invisible. That is not just because homosexuality was often a deliberately concealed or secret thing. On the contrary, for some periods of our history its very absence from the record may in fact be a reflection of how ordinary, commonplace and unremarkable its expression was. Several writers on gay history, such as Martin Duberman, have alluded to the paradox that although we have, relatively speaking, only a tiny amount of historical documentation of heterosexual behaviour in the past, no one would claim that this is an accurate reflection of what actually took place. There is no reason to think that homosexual behaviour was any different.
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/61344.html
A new "hidden history" book about homosexuality in Ireland has
provided "an invaluable template" for gay people and future
researchers examining the subject.
Jeffrey Dudgeon, a founding member of the Northern Ireland Gay
Rights Association, was referring to Terrible Queer Creatures -
Homosexuality in Irish History at the publication's launch in
Dublin last night.
"Just as the women's movement sparked an interest in the hidden
history of women, so it is argued that the hidden history of
homosexuality has its role to play in the onward struggle for
freedom from ignorance and prejudice," Mr Dudgeon said.
Author Brian Lacey (59) said he believed it was one of the first
comprehensive works on the topic to date and the professional
archaeologist said it was written because he had collected
information on the subject over the years.
Afterwards, he remarked that the book was the kind of tome he would
have liked to have read when he came out as a teenager in Dublin in
the late 1960s.
Mr Lacey's mother, Nora (78), was at the launch and said she had
read the manuscript before it was printed.
"Brian was the first person that I knew who was gay, but it never
changed our relationship. The book is very, very well written and I
am very proud of him," she said.
'Terrible Queer Creatures’: A history of homosexuality in Ireland
Brian Lacey
The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ was as common in Ireland throughout all stages of its history as it was in other parts of the world. Under certain cultural and historical conditions the expression of homosexuality in Ireland, as elsewhere, became more accepted or, at least, more visible than at any other times.
This book attempts to describe some of that visibility from early Ireland to the late 20th century. But it is clear that, like an iceberg, a far greater part of the story remains, and will almost certainly always remain, invisible. That is not just because homosexuality was often a deliberately concealed or secret thing. On the contrary, for some periods of our history its very absence from the record may in fact be a reflection of how ordinary, commonplace and unremarkable its expression was. Several writers on gay history, such as Martin Duberman, have alluded to the paradox that although we have, relatively speaking, only a tiny amount of historical documentation of heterosexual behaviour in the past, no one would claim that this is an accurate reflection of what actually took place. There is no reason to think that homosexual behaviour was any different.
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/61344.html
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