Queer Love: 'There aren’t many books that foc on gay people'

Contents:

• AT SWIM, TWO BOYS IS A GREAT IRISH NOVEL, AND A GROUNDBREAKG GAY LOVE STORY
• JOHN BOYNE'S THE HEART'S INVISIBLE FURI ABOUT A GAY MAN POST-WAR IRELAND
• IRISH GAY WRERS
• TRACKG A HISTORY OF IMAGARY QUEER OR GAY MEN MORN IRISH LERATURE
• “GAY GAELS” WHO HAVE ENRICHED IRELAND’S HISTORY AND CULTURE FOR THE WORLD
• QUEER LOVE: 'THERE AREN’T MANY BOOKS THAT FOC ON GAY PEOPLE'
• QUEER WHISPERS: GAY AND LBIAN VOIC IRISH FICTN BR: {WIDTH:TO;} RETURN TO YEAR REVIEW QUEER WHISPERS: GAY AND LBIAN VOIC IRISH FICTN

AT SWIM, TWO BOYS IS A GREAT IRISH NOVEL, AND A GROUNDBREAKG GAY LOVE STORY

Pl McVeigh, edor of Queer Love, troduc this new anthology of Irish gay fictn, and wr movgly about how librari were a safe space for him: “Let’s fill those bookshelv hom, librari, and shops wh more and more stori of . We didn’t crimalise homosexualy until 1993 – more than a quarter-century after siar laws had been enacted Great Bra – and yet by 2015 we’d bee the first untry the world to vote by plebisce for same-sex marriage.

There was still a sense of the clanste to what should have felt perfectly a young gay man behd a bookshop unter, I watched the people who bought At Swim, Two Boys – and there were a lot of them – and ed as a tool for flirtatn. He grew up gay Catholic Ireland – his last book A History Of Lonels centred on child abe the Church – but he wanted his latt story, The Heart's Invisible Furi, about a gay man fdg his way post-war Ireland, to make people lgh through story begs 1945 when a baby is born out of wedlock to a teenage girl st out om her ral muny.

JOHN BOYNE'S THE HEART'S INVISIBLE FURI ABOUT A GAY MAN POST-WAR IRELAND

Tonie Walsh (born 25 December 1960) Dubl, Ireland, is an LGBT rights activist, journalist, disc jockey, foundg edor of Gay Communy News (Dubl) and founr of the Irish Queer Archive.

Around the same time GCN published an op-ed headled: “Varadkar will be as helpful to the gays as Margaret Thatcher was to women” actual Leo Varadkar is a nventnal centre-right polician subscribg to a neoliberal worldview. Whatever threatens to unrme the social orr – ntrast wh any reformist polics to modify – will variably be ighteng and the new lennium the Irish lerary gay man had bee a lot more rpectable. Precisely but passnately, The Blackwater Lightship, published 1999, picts Declan endurg the terrifyg physlogil and psychic bilatns, as well as the banal huiatns, of dyg om that the new Irish lbian and gay fictn was not jt pictg realy.

IRISH GAY WRERS

) The Church—which has had more than their share of their own gay problems—the Ancient Orr of Hibernians and other like-md anizatns band together, thought back fondly on their 19th-century prejudic, and shouted an thorarian “NYET!

TRACKG A HISTORY OF IMAGARY QUEER OR GAY MEN MORN IRISH LERATURE

And you don’t have to look too hard eher for great exampl—two of the sixteen men executed by the Brish 1916 were most likely gay—Sir Roger Casement (fely) and Padraig Pearse (probably). Dpe havg a voted wife and fatherg a child, Behan’s homosexualy, which first blossomed when he was servg time a Brish borstal for young boys, ightened and disturbed him until his premature ath 1964. In his book, “Samuel Beckett: The Last Mornist”, Anthony Cron wrote “It might be accurate to say that his [Beckett’s] relatnship wh MacGreevy had, though was not sexual, an element of the homo-erotic , as ed some of Beckett’s later relatnships were to have.

“GAY GAELS” WHO HAVE ENRICHED IRELAND’S HISTORY AND CULTURE FOR THE WORLD

In recent years other Irish wrers have e out and clared their homosexualy, most promently novelist Colm Tóibín and Nuala O’Faola, who wrote about her relatnship wh Nell McCafferty Are You Somebody? Bgraphers have ntually bated Whman’s sexual orientatn; his poetry, particularly Leav of Grass, which faced ser censorship after s publitn, ntas several homoerotic imag, however others argue that this was untentnal.

QUEER LOVE: 'THERE AREN’T MANY BOOKS THAT FOC ON GAY PEOPLE'

Osr Wil (who also appears on this list), after meetg Whman 1882, was adamant that Whman was gay, and even told the activist Gee Cecil Iv, “I have the kiss of Walt Whman still on my lips.

QUEER WHISPERS: GAY AND LBIAN VOIC IRISH FICTN BR: {WIDTH:TO;} RETURN TO YEAR REVIEW QUEER WHISPERS: GAY AND LBIAN VOIC IRISH FICTN

Dorian Gray was origally published Lipptt’s Monthly Magaze, and drew such harsh cricism for s pictn of “immoraly, ” (one character the novel exprs a potentially romantic fatuatn for another male character) that when was later re-published as a book, Wil toned down the novel’s homoerotic subtext. In 1956, Baldw published Gvanni’s Room, a novel that drew tense attentn and cricism for s portrayal of homosexualy and bisexualy and is often ced as one of the most important queer novels ever wrten.