LGBT+ course UCC bound
A course on LGBT+ modern Irish has been launched on Leeside with UCC dubbing it the first of its kind in Ireland.
The course will examine LGBT+ identities and the struggle for LGBT+ rights in Ireland since the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969.
Called From Shame to Pride? A Short Introduction to LGBT+ Irish History (1970s-2020), it is being taught by historian Dr Diarmuid Scully as a course in UCC’s Adult and Continuing Education Programme.
It will look at how the LGBT+ community was criminalised by the law in the 1970s and 1980s in Ireland as well as the homophobic murder of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park in Dublin in 1982 and its impact on Irish attitudes to LGBT+ people.
Dr Scully said: “The history of LGBT+ people in Ireland was hidden or written from a hostile perspective until recently; this course is an opportunity to discover an often painful and inspiring history and learn about Irish LGBT+ people’s experiences.”
The course is based on the first ever degree-level Irish LGBT+ history module taught in any Irish university which is Dr Scully’s LGBT Identities in Modern Ireland: Sources, Contexts, Interpretations. Dr Scully introduced the module in 2018 to mark the 25th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality. It’s offered to second year students in the School of History at UCC.
“I was in Dublin Castle when the Marriage Equality Referendum results were announced. The atmosphere was electric. I felt only rage and desolation. Such joy in the courtyard, but so many lives destroyed by centuries of hate. I heard Christy Moore singing in my head ‘This graveyard hides a million secrets/And the trees know more than they can tell’. That song was written by Philip Chevron, who was gay, and it spells out what oppression does to people. I then decided to teach modern LGBT+ Irish history to raise awareness and explore the struggle against homophobia by LGBT+ people and allies in modern Ireland,” added Scully.
Other themes covered include the church and LGBT+ identity and sexuality, the Irish LGBT+ diaspora in the United States and the Marriage Equality Referendum in Ireland. The course runs from January-March 2020 in UCC.