LGBTQ+ Rights and Social Change in Ireland

For much of the twentieth century, Irish law criminalised sexual relations between men while Catholic social teaching strongly shaped education, family policy and public morality. Many LGBTQ+ people concealed their identities, emigrated or faced family rejection, police attention and workplace discrimination.

Activism, court challenges and wider social change gradually altered this position. Male homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1993, civil partnership followed in 2010, and the 2015 referendum made Ireland the first country to introduce marriage equality by popular vote.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies follows Cyril Avery from a closeted postwar childhood through exile, the AIDS era and a later Ireland in which relationships once treated as shameful receive public recognition.