University of Galway History Research Seminar: Edward Carpenter’s Irish World: Socialism, Spiritualism and Queer Sexuality in Ireland, 1890s-1920s

University of Galway History Research Seminar

Dr Maurice J. Casey (Queen’s University Belfast)

Edward Carpenter’s Irish World: 

Socialism, Spiritualism and Queer Sexuality in Ireland, 1890s-1920s 

Abstract
Was there a sexual revolution within the Irish revolution? While recent work has sought to uncover experiences of queer sexuality in early twentieth century Ireland, less has been said about how Irish intellectuals and political radicals discussed and imagined sexual modernity. Ireland’s ‘revolutionary generation’ emerged precisely as terms like ‘homosexual’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘invert’ began to circulate within closed intellectual networks in Europe and beyond. By focusing on the Irish people and migrant intellectuals within Ireland who encountered the works of the socialist sage of sexuality Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), this talk will explore how new conceptions of human sexuality were discussed and encountered within Ireland in the decades before and after independence.

The protagonists of this talk are a collection of largely obscure and loosely interlinked figures. They include Chester A. Arthur III, the assertively queer grandson of a US President who joined the Dublin republican social elite during the Irish Civil War, Lily Kirkpatrick, an Irish artist who fell in love with the English feminist Edith Ellis in 1890s Cornwall, and Arthur Kingsley Porter, a Harvard academic who grappled with his sexuality in his adopted home of Donegal in the late 1920s. Alongside these central characters, we will discuss their Irish friends, among them many much better known figures, including Charlotte Despard, Ella Young, George Russell (‘AE’) and Jim Larkin. Following these interconnected lives, this talk traces the contours of an ephemeral space in early twentieth century Ireland where queer identities were discussed and even accepted.

Speaker Biography
Maurice J. Casey is a Research Fellow in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, where he works on the AHRC-funded project ‘Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation’. His first book Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of World Revolution will be published by Footnote Press in late 2024. Exploring the social circle of an Irish woman who lived in a Moscow hotel in the 1920s, the book traces a 20th century story that lies at the intersection of Irish history, queer history and the history of international communism.

Registration

This is an online-only event, streamed via Zoom: https://universityofgalway-ie.zoom.us/j/91293716806.

To attend, please register at: https://forms.office.com/e/nNfYbQz28C

All are welcome!

This talk is part of the University of Galway History Seminar series.

Image: Chester A. Arthur III, queer grandson of a US President, on a horse, outside a cottage destroyed by “the ‘Tans”, in Kerry, during the Civil War.