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Kilmainham Gaol showcases queer history of Irish revolutionaries

Kilmainham Gaol’s event has been welcomed as giving a more complete sense of Irish history.

KILMAINHAM GAOL WILL highlight its “queer history” today, in a move welcomed as giving the public a more complete sense of Irish history.

The former prison, where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were imprisoned and executed, will host a sold out “queer history tour…focusing on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners”.

It has hosted similar tours since 2018 to coincide with the annual Pride celebration in June. However this year, the tour’s announcement on Twitter was met with a homophobic backlash. Many social media users also expressed support for the tour and abhorrence of the negative reaction.

The event has also been promoted by the National Museum on its social media. The museum also highlighted an online talk about Roger Casement, the diplomat executed for his role in the 1916 Rising. Casement was gay.

Dr Mary McAuliffe, director of gender studies at University College Dublin, said the queer history of the revolutionary period should be highlighted.

She noted there were several queer participants in the Irish revolution, including Margaret Skinnider, who was a sniper in the Easter Rising. Queer inmates in Kilmainham Gaol included Skinnider’s partner Nora O’Keeffe, as well as Kathleen Lynn, chief medical officer of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army (ICA), and her partner Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, also a member of the ICA.

McAuliffe said: “What if we just knew the history of men, which is basically what history was for a long, long time? They were incomplete histories.”

She added that as well as revolutionaries, many ordinary queer people passed through the prison and not enough is known about their history.

“Ordinary criminals were held there, and soldiers lived there, and wardens lived there. They weren’t all straight. They were queer as well,” she said.

McAuliffe, who is writing a book about Kathleen Lynn, said the rhetoric she had seen on social media attacking the tour had taken her by surprise.

“I thought we moved on from that sort of vicious, awful, homophobic, hatred that was in those comments,” she said.

She added that the tone of the negative comments was a symptom of the rise of the anti-trans movement in Ireland, as well as the rise of the far-right and their “awful campaigns against not just queer people, but against migrants and asylum seekers”.

“A lot of that is mostly on social media, but it is spilling over into real life,” she said.
The Office of Public Works, the government department which operates Kilmainham Gaol, declined to comment on the negative responses to its announcement on social media.

Additional reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill

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    Mute Denis McClean
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    Mar 16th 2018, 1:10 PM

    Multiple carts before horses and fields with open gates come to mind.

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    Mute Paul O Faolain
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    Mar 16th 2018, 1:47 PM

    Was it pilot error or something else,does anyone know the answer

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    Mute Nauris Serna
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    Mar 16th 2018, 2:11 PM

    @Paul O Faolain: Ad with most accidents, it’s a sequence of events that led to it. Also, worth noting, that the purpose of the investigation is to prevent a repeat, rather than put a blame or liability on somebody.

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    Mute Crocodylus Pontifex
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    Mar 16th 2018, 2:53 PM

    @Paul O Faolain: The investigation is ongoing. There is a requirement to publish a report 1 year after the event if the case is still open which is what today’s update is about. A lot of things had to line up for this tragedy to happen so there will be no clear and simple answer.

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    Mute Hugh Legat
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    Mar 16th 2018, 3:39 PM

    Investigation ongoing. I would like to know is it correct the pilot repeatedly ignored radar alarms of an “imminent collision” take evasive action! It doesn’t matter it wasn’t on her chart.

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    Mute Ohhh_reeally
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    Mar 16th 2018, 4:01 PM

    @Hugh Legat: good man Hugh, “you’d like to know”. Do you mind me asking why you’d like to know? What use will the information be to you once you have it?

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    Mute pat winters
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    Mar 16th 2018, 5:10 PM

    @Hugh Legat: A lot of reading but avoiding the proverbial elephant (lighthouse) in the room. A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation.

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    Mute EUGENE 70 percent
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    Mar 16th 2018, 10:35 PM

    @Hugh Legat: is it the ground proximity warning system that gives the warning you refer to.

    Because an earlier finding was that Blackrock was not on whatever mapping the ground proximity warning uses.

    I see on RTE that the investigation is continuing and that warning systems are one of the things that will continue to be looked at.

    Best wait for the FINAL report before rushing to assume the pilot ignored warmings.

    Quite striking in my eyes to see a reccomendation for review of SYSTEMS and how the SAR operations operate “if it was as simple as a pilot ignoring a warning”.

    Can’t help but suspect that theres a POSSIBILITY that investigators see wider system flaws as at the very least a POTENTIAL contributory factor in the crash.

    They aren’t making recommendations for fun. They are likely making them because the investigation is uncovering things pointing them to a NEED for one.

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    Mute Quentin Moriarty
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    Mar 17th 2018, 9:09 AM

    @Ohhh_reeally: landing gear down 9 miles out
    Legat has a point

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    Mute Quentin Moriarty
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    Mar 16th 2018, 5:32 PM

    Altitude approach protocols a priority

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    Mute Martin Dale
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    Mar 16th 2018, 3:37 PM

    Proper order

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    Mute Neuville-Kepler62F
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    Mar 17th 2018, 6:24 PM

    “Professional” Pilot error is never a root cause of air accidents when viewed from an engineering perspective. It is a systems or process error. This is the second helicopter crash after Tramore. The root cause of both must be identified.

    Even at speed a good on board radar system will give ample advanced warning of impending collision and should intervene in aircraft flight to avoid it.

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