Professor John Nagle (QUB)‘This is Our Revolution Too’: LGBTQ Rights Activism and the National Question in Northern Ireland

By primarily focussing on a single case-study, Northern Ireland, this talk draws attention to how LGBTQ movements can be sites of conflict over questions of national self-determination. The paper thus challenges existing literature which frames LGBTQ movements in divided societies as above or beyond the dynamics of conflict. The talk will further seek to position LGBTQ activism in Northern Ireland with other societies that have experienced conflict. The talk deploys a wide range of primary data, including interviews and archival documents, to analyse LGBTQ activism in Northern Ireland during the period of ethnonationalist conflict in the 1970s and 1980s.