ABSTRACT
LGBTQI+ history is a notoriously difficult topic to uncover without resorting to tropes of criminality and deviancy; indeed the focus of the history of Irish homosexuality has been primarily on Oscar Wilde and his prosecution for indecency following the Queensberry libel trial in 1895. Homosexuality was a capital offence until 1861; thereafter, and until its decriminalisation in 1993, it was a felony punishable by penal servitude, and this criminal framing has had an indelible impact on the lived experience of queerness in the Irish past. Lesbianism was hardly recognised at all in the period we examine here, and neither were other forms of sexual identity. For such reasons, social and literary historians are often forced to read between the lines of coded language existing in public and private records. We provide a general background of approaches to LGBTQI+ history and then use newspapers to provide an overview of attitudes towards and notice shifts in presentation that serve to other queer lives as foreign, degenerate, or diseased.
