Abstract
This article focuses on the experiences of gay men in the rural west and northwest region of Ireland, during a period of transformational social and political change in Irish society. These changes have helped facilitate new forms of LGBTQI visibility, and local radicalism in the region. Same-sex weddings, establishment of rural LGBT groups and marching under an LGBT banner at St Patricks Day parades would have been unthinkable in the recent past; but they are now becoming a reality. The men report continuing challenges in their lives as gay men in the nonmetropolitan space, but the emergence of new visibility, voice and cultural acceptance of LGBT people is helping change their lived experiences. The study demonstrates the impact of local activist LGBT citizens. Through their testimonies we can gain an insight into the many, varied and interwoven factors that have interplayed to create the conditions necessary for the men to: increasingly define themselves as gay to greater numbers of people in their localities; to embrace greater visibility and eschew strategies of silence; and aspire to a host of legal, political, cultural and social rights including same-sex marriage. Organic forms of visibility and local radicalism have emerged in the region and through an analysis of their testimonies we can see how the men continue to be transformed by an ever-changing landscape.
Highlights
Few societies have changed so rapidly and so radically than the Republic of Ireland
The findings presented in this article are derived from fieldwork conducted between, 2012 and 2017 in rural and small town areas of Ireland and England
I was attracted by this hermeneutic emphasis on ‘historicality’, (Laverty, 2003) because I felt this resonated with the lesbian, gay and bisexual experience in Ireland; as persons adjusting to a changed contextual environment where, rhetorically at least, their subjectivities are being re-cast by progressive legislative advances and liberalising social attitudes
Summary
Few societies have changed so rapidly and so radically than the Republic of Ireland. Irish society has witnessed a radical departure from its historic, visible and rigid adherence to strict Catholic moral doctrine on family and sexuality, which until recent decades was pursued energetically by both politicians, and people alike (Fahey, 2014: 73). The decriminalization of sex acts between men, in 1993, was a landmark moment and is seen as an important building block in the cultural and social construction of the Republic of Ireland as a tolerant, progressive and modern society (Cronin, 2004: 251). As equal sexual citizens under law, gay people in the Republic of Ireland can marry, inherit property on the basis of their state sanctioned relationships, adopt children, receive state benefits, and are protected from discrimination in all aspects of life, whether as employees, as consumers, or as individuals in the wider social context. In 2017, an openly gay man, Leo Varadkar, became the first gay Taoiseach (prime-minister) of the Republic of Ireland
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