Quare Fellows Abroad: Homosexuality and the Irish Diaspora, c. 1880s-1960s

爱尔兰酷儿的历史在很大程度上仍然不发达。大多数出版的关于爱尔兰同性恋的作品只关注20世纪后期，主要通过政治镜头，关注20世纪60年代以来的激进主义和镇压。在爱尔兰历史的其他叙述中，最明显的是爱尔兰侨民的历史，几乎没有成功的“酷儿”。尽管如此，关于爱尔兰同性恋和移民之间关系的出版工作也很少，主要集中在20世纪中后期，第二次世界大战前爱尔兰侨民的酷儿叙述被模糊了。目前，爱尔兰酷儿男子在1880年至1940年间进入美国和英国大都市的运动在英美酷儿城市历史中只被简单地提到过。在我的项目中，由北桥联盟资助，我建议研究十九世纪末到二十世纪初爱尔兰和伦敦、纽约之间的同性恋爱尔兰人的运动。这一时期，大量爱尔兰人移民到美国和英国，与此同时，伦敦和纽约的酷儿城市亚文化也出现了明显的发展。这个项目的目的是研究这些男人如何在爱尔兰和这些城市之间移动，如何参与酷儿的城市活动，甚至是如何过着半公开的酷儿生活方式。我不会过分关注他们的被捕，因为这将会再现一种过时的关于性行为历史的方法，把同性恋在同性恋解放之前描绘成过度压抑和隐秘的，我将展示这些人在他们被发现之前和之后是如何生活和旅行的。通过理解酷儿经历是如何通过城市空间作为爱尔兰侨民的一部分与男性的运动联系在一起的，这个项目将在爱尔兰酷儿行动主义诞生之前将“酷儿”的元素引入爱尔兰侨民的研究中。我的项目以几个研究问题为指导：酷儿男是如何从爱尔兰来回搬到伦敦和纽约的？他们是如何影响这些城市的“酷儿场景”的？爱尔兰社区中酷儿文化的空间组织是怎样的？他们回到爱尔兰是如何改变国内的“同性恋场景”的？爱尔兰人对男性、国家和宗教信仰的理解在多大程度上影响了酷儿的身份认同？20世纪50年代和60年代关于同性恋的公开辩论对爱尔兰侨民有什么影响？为了回答这些问题，我利用档案研究以及对爱尔兰和国外男性气质，城市文化和移民的话语的分析。像许多同性恋历史学家一样，我将使用逮捕报告和定罪来证明爱尔兰男性在爱尔兰和国外都有同性恋行为。这些报告可以在都柏林的国家档案馆和贝尔法斯特的北爱尔兰公共记录办公室找到。类似的记录可以在伦敦国家档案馆的公共记录办公室和曼哈顿的纽约市档案馆找到。我还打算利用与公开性行为和同性恋丑闻有关的报纸报道来展示公众对同性恋的看法，特别是在爱尔兰移民人口众多的地区。然而，为了摆脱对同性恋解放前同性恋研究的过时叙述，我还打算使用家谱数据和人口普查报告来表明，这些人在遭受迫害前后继续过着他们的生活，在英国、美国和他们的祖国之间迁徙。

Irish queer history remains largely underdeveloped. Most works published on Irish homosexuality focus only on the late-twentieth century through a primarily political lens, focusing on activism and repression from the 1960s onwards. There has been little success in 'queering' other narratives of Irish history, most noticeably the history of the Irish diaspora. Still, what little work has been published on the relationship between Irish homosexuality and migration also focuses on the mid- to late-twentieth century, with the queer narratives of the Irish diaspora before the Second World War being obscured. Currently, the movement of queer Irish men into the American and English metropolises between 1880 and 1940 has only been briefly mentioned in English and American queer urban histories. For my project, funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium, I propose to examine the movement of queer Irish men between Ireland and the cities of London and New York between the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This period saw large rates of Irish emigration to the United States and England, which coincided with the development of visible queer urban subcultures in both London and New York. It is the aim of this project to examine how these men moved between Ireland and these cities and engaged in queer urban practices or perhaps even led semi-public queer lifestyles. Rather than focusing excessively on their arrest, which would simply recreate an outdated approach to the history of sexuality by portraying homosexuality before gay liberation as overly repressed and secretive, I will show how these men lived their lives and travelled before and after their moment of discovery. By understanding how queer experiences were connected to the movement of men through the urban space as part of the Irish diaspora, this project will introduce an element of 'queerness' into the study of the Irish diaspora before the birth of Irish queer activism. My project is guided by several research questions: In what ways did queer men move back and forth to London and New York from Ireland? How did they impact upon 'queer scenes' in these cities? What was the spatial organization of queer culture in Irish neighbourhoods? How did their return to Ireland alter domestic 'queer scenes'? To what extent did their Irish understandings of masculinity, nationhood, and religiosity affect queer identities? What effect(s) did the public debate about homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s have on the Irish diaspora? To answer these questions, I utilise archival research alongside analysis of discourses around masculinity, urban culture, and migration in Ireland and abroad. Like many queer historians, I will use arrest reports and convictions to show that Irish men were engaging in homosexual sex in Ireland and abroad. These reports can be found in The National Archives in Dublin and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast. Similar records can be found in the Public Records Office in the National Archives in London and the New York Municipal Archives in Manhattan. I also aim to use newspaper reports relating to public sex and homosexual scandals to demonstrate public views towards homosexuality, particular in areas with high Irish diasporic populations. However, to escape from the outdated narratives of the study of homosexuality prior to gay liberation, I also aim to use genealogy data and census reports to show that these men continued to live their lives and move between England, America, and their homeland before and after their moment of persecution.