Homosexuals in Ireland

The stigma of being homosexual in Ireland has greatly declined in the past thirty years, in tandem with several legal changes that have restored measures of equality to those denied it for many decades. Indeed, the younger gay adults of today seem to have as much difficulty conceiving of a time when homosexual activity was illegal as those gay men and women of the mid-twentieth century had when trying to imagine that they might someday be free and equal. The equality legislation appears to have helped younger gays but it has done little to help those of middle-age or older. The research in this book shows that distinction clearly and gives an additional focus to a still stigmatised sub-group, married gay men.