'Sexuality in Ireland, 1900-2020' is the first in a series of events from the Nerve Centre's Creative Centenaries project exploring the legacy of partition and the formation of Northern Ireland. 

Chaired by Dr Tom Hulme (Queens University Belfast), featuring a talk titled ‘Gay Life at the Time of Partition’, Dr Hulme was joined by Ulster Unionist Party member and civil rights activist Jeffrey Dudgeon, Here NI Coordinator for the LGBT Heritage Project Mary Ellen Campbell, and University College Dublin’s Páraic Kerrigan.

Dr Hulme is a Senior Lecturer at the School of History at Queen's University Belfast, currently leading the Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation project, funded by the AHRC. Dr Hulme is an active supporter of LGBTQ+ equality and also sits on the committee of the LGBTQ+ Staff Network at Queen’s University Belfast.

Joining Dr Hulme in speaking on 20th century Irish LGBTQ+ history is author of Roger Casement – The Black Diaries, with a Study of his Background, Sexuality, and Irish Political Life (3rd Edition, 2019), Jeffrey Dudgeon (MBE). Jeffrey explores the history of sexuality in Ireland between 1960s-1990s.

Rounding off the history of the past century, University College Dublin Teaching Fellow Dr Páraic Kerrigan and Here NI coordinator for the LGBT Heritage Project, Mary Ellen Campbell explore the contemporary history of LGBTQ+ groups in Ireland. Mary Ellen also delves into the crucial work of the HERe NI organisation, dedicated to the support of lesbian and bisexual women in Northern Ireland.