Hidden Lives: The Gay Community in Post-Independence Ireland

For Dublin's gay community, Irish Independence and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 heralded anything but freedom. While the new state promised change, the gay community faced decades of repression, arrest, and severe punishment. Yet despite this, they continued to build lives, relationships, and communities in the shadow of fear. In this episode, I am joined by historian Averill Earls to discuss her book Love in the Lav , a fascinating history of the community in Dublin in the decades after Irish independence. While repression is central to the story, this conversation also uncovers a more complicated picture of the community's relationship with wider Irish society and the ways people navigated a world shaped by surveillance, stigma, and silence. Become a supporter of the show patreon.com/irishpodcast Get your copy of Averill's book Love in the Lav In Ireland - In the US Bookshop.org - Averill Earls is Associate Professor of History at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast, and co-convener of the Reminiscence and Remembrance Oral History Project for LGBTQ+ Ireland. Sound: Kate Dunlea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to Hidden Lives: The Gay Community in Post-Independence Ireland online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Hidden Lives: The Gay Community in Post-Independence Ireland is an episode from Irish History Podcast by Fin Dwyer.

This episode is 36:31 long.

This episode was published on Apr 1, 2026.

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