As Ireland marks a half century of LGBT activism, OPW-Kilkenny Castle is delighted to host a talk by Tonie Walsh, founder of the Irish Queer Archive. The talk will trace
the evolution of queer activism on the island of Ireland; from the formation of Belfast's Gay Liberation Society (1972) and the hugely influential Sexual Liberation Movement (1973) at Dublin's TCD to the establishment of community resources and mainstream advocacy groups across all our cities and large towns.
This is a potted history of the LGBT civil rights movement as it fights state-sponsored homophobia, cycles of violence, media and government censorship and conservative Christian values to advance visibility and Senator David Norris' Constitutional Action; following decriminalisation, the advent of equality legislation throughout the 1990s, culminating in the Equal Status Act in 2000 and, fifteen years later, Marriage Equality and the Gender Recognition Act.
Irish LGBT liberation didn't happen in a vacuum; important political and socio-cultural currents like the Northern Irish civil rights movement and the second wave of feminism, even membership of the EU, all impacted on the movement for change.