ABSTRACT
This chapter marks a significant transformation for queer visibility due to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993. This changing legal status saw a corresponding incorporation of queer visibility into fictional televisual representation, not just current-affairs programming. Post-decriminalisation representations saw institutional forms of popular culture – the sitcom and soap opera – shape the conditions under which queer visibility could emerge in Irish public life. Using the sitcom Upwardly Mobile (1995–1998) and the soap opera Fair City (1989–), this chapter suggests that queer visibility revealed the tentative anxieties around depicting gay Irish characters in the wake of decriminalisation, resulting in ambivalent and conservative representations. The chapter argues that the production cultures of RTÉ were anxious around writing and producing queer characters and storylines, particularly around the topic of intimacy. This anxiety regulated queer visibility in varying ways, particularly around what was representationally permitted on the Irish public service broadcaster.
