Analysis: The road to marriage equality, and the seismic change of recent times, was built on foundations laid by feminist and queer activists in the 1970s
By Mary McAuliffe, UCD
On an October evening in 1973, several students and young activists gathered in a room in Trinity College Dublin. They included poet and activist Mary Dorcey, Margaret McWilliams, Irene Brady, feminist activist Ruth Riddick, Micheál Kerrigan, Gerry McNamara, Hugo McManus, Peter Bradley, filmmaker and activist Edmund Lynch and David Norris, who would go on to become the State's longest serving senator. They were there that evening for the first meeting of the Sexual Liberation Movement (SLM).
Influenced by the winds of change coming from second wave feminism, student movements, sexual liberation, anti-colonial movements, anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, nationally and internationally, these young activists were determined to publicly challenge the attitudes to and laws about LGBTIQ+ people in Ireland. In 1973, gay male sex was still a criminal offence, women who did not conform to a 'respectable' marital, domestic and reproductive role could still be institutionalised in Magdalen Laundries and no-one spoke of trans people.
But despite still being publicly a Catholic, conservative society, Ireland was, very slowly and with much resistance, changing. Feminists had already challenged the status quo with direct action activism. Members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM) took part in the 'contraceptive train’ from Dublin to Belfast in May 1971. This action was to show the ridiculousness of the laws prohibiting sale of contraceptives in the Republic, when they were available just a two hour train ride up to Belfast.
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From RTÉ Archives, Cathal O'Shannon examines perceptions of homosexuality, identity and sexual orientation in Irish society in an episode of Tuesday Report in February 1977
It was also about changing the laws of the State: importation of contraceptives was also forbidden and the IWLM women, in openly bringing condoms through customs in Connolly Station, were challenging those laws. This direct action activism made its mark and the photo of the women marching through Connolly station is now iconic. While this action challenged laws which prevented women from controlling their own reproductive body, some of the young feminists were also concerned about the right to self-determined sexuality.
Around the same time, the first Gay Liberation Society was founded at Queen’s University Belfast. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in England and Wales, but this had not yet been extended to Northern Ireland. In many parts of Europe and in America, a social movement with the idea of sexual liberation at its centre was taking hold. This social movement was about challenging the norms and broader ideas on sexuality, including a demand for full reproductive rights for women, new ideas and acceptances of sexual orientation, concepts of self-determined sexuality as well as questions about gender identity.
In Ireland, inspired in part by these winds of change, lesbian feminists began to participate in consciousness raising and ideas of freedom of choice, gay men began to agitate against criminalisation and by the late 1970s the Irish first trans group, ‘Friends of Eon’ was set up. Many of the activists who were at the first SLM meetings were foundational members of the feminist and queer movements which began in the 1970s: for example, Mary Dorcey was the founder member of the radical feminist group Irish Women United (IWU) in 1975.
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From RTÉ Archives, David Norris talks to Áine O'Connor on a 1975 episode of Last House in what was possibly the first interview with an openly gay person on RTÉ television
Historian Mary Cullen has argued that the IWU charter broke new ground "in sex related areas, being more explicit with regard to contraception and adding abortion and lesbian rights to its main demands". As Dorcey has written, "all the central issues [of IWU] applied to lesbians, many of whom were married, were mothers, or were working for low wages. From the start, when I and a few others spoke openly about gay rights, we roused passion and excitement among the wider group".
David Norris is of course very well known for his long campaign to decriminalise homosexuality. It began with the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform set up in 1974, with two future presidents of Ireland, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, succeeding each other as legal advisors. Norris took several court cases, though the Irish courts and then on to the European Court of Human Rights, eventually succeeding at the ECHR in 1988 when Ireland’s laws on sex between men were declared unlawful.
Working on from those small but vital beginnings at the SLM meeting, many more queer organisations were set up – some were short lived, some still with us today. It is important to remember these organisations as they were all part of the path towards decriminalisation, equality and inclusion. Among them were the Irish Gay Rights Movement (IGRM, 1974), LIL (Liberation for Irish Lesbians, (1978), National Gay Federation (NGF, 1978-1979), which became the NLGF and then the NXF, which continues to represent the LGBTIQ+ community today – indeed it is the oldest queer activist group in the country. Outside of Dublin, the Cork Gay Collective was formed in 1980, in 1981 Galway IGRM was set up, and 1983 saw the formation of the Cork Lesbian Collective.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's History Show, Julien Clancy speaks to activist Tonie Walsh about the Hirschfeld Centre, Ireland's first LGBT community centre
Of course, activism and campaigning for rights is never a linear progression. It may seem like once a right is gained, there is a backlash to gaining any more or, indeed, to undoing what has been gained. Irish feminist and queer activists faced these difficulties time and again through the last five decades. In the 1980s, there was a fierce conservative backlash to the small but real gains by Irish women. In particular, the Catholic 'moral monopoly', as named by Tom Inglis, created one model of marriage which played a powerful role in the regulation of female sexuality and the reproduction of heterosexuality.
Despite all the campaigns for decriminalisation and inclusion, the Irish High Court upheld Ireland's traditional laws on homosexuality in 1980 'on the grounds of the Christian nature of our State and on the grounds that the deliberate practice of homosexuality is morally wrong’. Three years later, the 8th Amendment , which banned abortion, was inserted into the Constitution and the first divorce referendum was soundly defeated in 1986. The Ireland of the 1980s seemed to be no country for women or LGBTIQ+ people.
Against the intransigence of a large part of Irish society, feminist and queer activists continued their battles for freedom,choice, sexuality and gender identity. The AIDS crisis of 1980s challenged the queer community in many ways, as reporting in the national media constructed HIV as the ‘gay disease’ and gay men as bringing shame on Catholic Ireland. As historian and archivist Tonie Walsh said ‘Aids cut a devastating path’, with no real impetus on the Government or society to help the beleaguered community.
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From RTÉ Archives, curator of the Irish Queer Archive Tonie Walsh provides a background to the collection in 2002
During all this, LGBTIQ+ men and women rallied together, forging alliances, setting up organisations such as Gay Health Action (GHA), which came from another public meeting held in Trinity College in February 1985. With funding collected from within the community it published the first information leaflets in May of that year. The community, and feminists groups, rallied together and established the AIDS Action Alliance network, as well as telephone line (AIDS Helpline), all without Government funding.
Much of these histories are being written now, thanks to a generation of activists, historians and archivists (among them Walsh of the Irish Queer Archive, Orla Egan of the Cork LGBT Archives and Sara Philipps of the Trans Archive). Professional historians are now turning their attention to these archives and histories; an important turn, as knowing our histories helps understand how we work to keep what we have archived.
The 1990s seemed on a good trajectory. The decade saw larger Pride marches each year, the foundation of Gay Community News (GCN), a vital community newspaper, and a formal visit by queer activists to Áras an Uachtaráin at the invitation of Mary Robinson. There was also the passing of the Sexual Offences Act in 1993, which decriminalised sex between men, and the amending of Unfair Dismals Act in 1993 to include sexual orientation, inclusion and equality of queer people.
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From RTÉ Archives, Alasdair Jackson reports for RTÉ News in 1992 on how Gay Community News covered the Council of Europe call for the Irish Government to bring in legislation to decriminalise homosexuality with the next six months
In 1997, Lydia Foy began legal proceedings as she had been refused a new birth certificate and legal recognition as a woman. Like the march towards decriminalisation, this was a slow process, ultimately taking two decades. However, at the end of the 1990s many in the Irish queer community looked towards the 21st century with a sense of optimism.
In the early 2000s, Ireland was a more secular, liberal and inclusive society. It saw LGBTIQ+ groups receive significant Government funding, and campaigns for civil partnership and marriage equality began. The annual Lesbian Lives conference at UCD, founded by Ailbhe Smyth, and organised through UCD Women’s and then Gender Studies, became an important date in the queer calendar.
The battle for recognition of queer relationships now took a central space, with firstly civil partnership proposed and subsequently marriage equality put firmly on the table. This decade of progression towards success in the Marriage Equality referendum and the passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2015 was a long, hard struggle, but was built on the firm and enduring foundations of work towards sexual liberation began by feminist and queer activists in the 1970s.The battle for recognition of queer relationships now took a central space, with firstly civil partnership proposed and subsequently marriage equality put firmly on the table. This decade of progression towards success in the Marriage Equality referendum and the passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2015 was a long, hard struggle, but was built on the firm and enduring foundations of work towards sexual liberation began by feminist and queer activists in the 1970s.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Brendan O'Connor Show, interview with activist Ailbhe Smyth about her life and work
10 years after marriage equality and the acceptance of gender identity, it is time to take stock at where we are. In many ways, the Ireland of today is unrecognisable from the Ireland of 1973 when the first SLM meeting occurred. Equality under the law, marriage equality, and gender self ID exists in an Ireland where homophobia, transphobia and misogyny are unacceptable.
However, have we reached a point of true inclusion? As often happens with progression, a backlash occurs. There is no doubt that there is a backlash towards the gains of the feminist and queer communities, nationally and internationally. Reproductive rights for women are under threat in many countries, and trans rights and broader LGBTQ rights are also under threat.
There are murmurings from the right of the need to undo the gains of marriage equality in 2015, and of repeal in 2018. There are the small but viciously vocal cohort of gender critical activists who wish to undermine all rights gained by the trans community.
As always with the queer community, there is unity, solidarity, resilience and resistance
But as always with the queer community, there is unity, solidarity, resilience and resistance. All the national organisations which represent queer people are trans inclusive, all the feminist organisations of note are intersectional. LGBTIQ+ communities continue to work at the hard job of advocacy and continue to campaign for rights in the face of adversity.
As public activists, they often deal with personal attacks, transphobia and homophobia but, as was and is always the case, they have the joy of being part of a community and a sense of solidarity and belonging. While there are those who would undermine the gains of the past decade (indeed, the past five decades), there is a queer community that will continue the battle to create a society in which we can all live in safety and equality.
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Dr Mary McAuliffe is a historian, lecturer and Director of Gender Studies at UCD.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
