Kilmainham Gaol Museum to host launch event of LGBTI+ history festival
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From: Office of Public Works
- Published on: 11 March 2022
- Last updated on: 12 April 2025
Lecture on the Roger Casement controversy in the historic surroundings of Kilmainham Goal and Courthouse
Kilmainham Gaol Museum is delighted to announce that it will host a lecture by the historian, gay rights activist and politician Jeffrey Dudgeon on Friday 18 March at 6.30pm. The Casement Diaries – Authenticity and Homosexual Identity will be the opening event of OUTing the Past 2022: The International Festival of Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Trans History, an exciting programme of events, talks, webinars and workshops which will run in fifteen different galleries, museums, libraries and archives across Ireland from 18 March 2022 to 10 April 2022.
This lecture will look at the controversy surrounding Casement’s infamous ‘Black Diaries’ in which he recorded, in frank detail, his various homosexual encounters around the world. The diaries were discovered by the authorities following his arrest on charges of high treason in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. Many at the time, and since, dismissed them as forgeries and the debate as to their authenticity, and Casement’s identity as a gay man, continues to rage to this day, though most historians now accept that they are genuine. The talk will look at this controversy and will also consider what it says about Irish society’s attitude towards homosexuality.
Speaking about his lecture, Jeffrey Dudgeon said,
“Roger Casement remains a contended figure to this day, over a century after he was executed for treason … he is a study in how famous gays come in from the margins and how Ireland has found it difficult to cope.”
Jeffrey Dudgeon has been a leading member of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association since its foundation in 1975. He brought a successful case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg relating to the right to a private life which led to the passing of a law decriminalising consenting, adult, male, private, homosexual behaviour in Northern Ireland in 1982. In 2002 he published Roger Casement: The Black Diaries – With a Study of his Background, Sexuality, and Irish Political Life. Dudgeon continues to work on gay law reform issues, and with police on crimes against LGBTI+ persons, and assisting those in legal difficulties. He was awarded an MBE in the 2012 Honours List for “services to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Northern Ireland.” He served as an Ulster Unionist Councillor to Belfast City Council from 2014 to 2019.
The lecture will take place in the atmospheric and historic surroundings of the former Courthouse in Kilmainham, next door to the Gaol where fourteen of the other leaders of the 1916 Rising were executed.
Collections Curator at Kilmainham Gaol, Brian Crowley, added,
“Kilmainham Gaol is very excited to be the host venue for the opening event of Outing The Past Festival 2022. The Festival is a very important initiative which addresses the historic erasure of LGBTI+ lives and invites the public to explore stories which were too often hidden or denied in the past."
Admission is free, but places must be booked in advance via Eventbrite - eventbrite.ie .
It will also be screened live on the GCN (Gay Community News) YouTube channel. For further information and high resolution images, please contact Brian Crowley, Kilmainham Gaol Museum at 086 8079071 or at brian.crowley@opw.ie.
ENDS