Guest Post by Mark Ward (Please note, that all views are my own and not representative of any organisations)
Eight
years ago today, on the 16th June 2008, the Irish Queer Archive
(IQA), “a vast collection of material which provides interesting and valuable
insights into the social history of lesbians and gay men in an Irish and
international context over a thirty-year period”[1],
was donated by the National Lesbian and Gay Federation of Ireland to the
National Library of Ireland (NLI).
In 2009, a 157 page collection list detailing its fascinating contents was
released by the NLI[2].
And then, nothing.
I kept waiting for the National Library to mount an exhibition of the archive,
but they never did. Why?
The archive’s Wikipedia page talks about how “the historic transfer of IQA to
NLI was also hugely symbolic as it signalled the Irish state taking ownership
of LGBT heritage”[3]
and states that digitisation of the entire collection is an aim. The IQA has a
semi-active Facebook page[4]
where a number of items have been photographed and shared along with historical
information which gives a fascinating insight into the wealth of the material
in the archive. I am under the impression that this endeavour, however, is not
coming from the NLI but from historians associated with the IQA.
Tonie Walsh, member of the IQA group, historian, DJ and founding editor of Gay
Community News (GCN), has done much to keep the flag of the IQA flying, giving
talks and staging exhibitions using copies of materials from the IQA. For
example, his exhibition, A Liberating
Party: LGBT Pride in Ireland Since 1974, has toured all over the country,
visiting places such as Clonmel, Arklow, Waterford and South Dublin (full
disclosure: A Liberating Party visited
Tallaght Library in 2010, and Ballyroan Library in 2013, both of which I
organised). Accompanying this, and all of his exhibitions, is Everybody’s Diary, a ledger of Pride Testimonials
which has been travelling the country since 2003 and will continue touring
until full, and then be added to the IQA – crucially, the IQA is a living
archive that is continually accepting donations.
As is evident from the above, Walsh is a powerhouse in getting the IQA out
there, but he is only one man. The NLI
have not mounted a single exhibition of the IQA in the eight years that they
have had it. And they do mount exhibitions, frequently it seems, not only
ones in the NLI itself or in their National Photographic Archive, but they also
have travelling and online exhibitions. Frustratingly, there have been events
at the NLI which, arguably, would’ve been a perfect opportunity to include IQA
exhibits, such as a Marriage Equality event in the NLI in 2013[5]
or a BeLonG To Youth Services Photographic Exhibition in 2014 in the NLI’s National
Photographic Archive[6].
Currently, there is no NLI-led exhibition of the IQA, and none seems to be
forthcoming. This despite the fact, according to Wikipedia that “an advisory
group (…) continues to focus on opportunities to help the National Library of
Ireland exploit its collection”[7]
– if this is the case, why hasn’t an exhibition been mounted? Are the National
Library actively collaborating with this advisory group?
Furthermore, despite the aim mentioned earlier that the NLI would be
“ultimately digitising the entire collection”[8],
nothing of the IQA appears to have been digitized by the NLI and there is no
mention anywhere of any such digitization project happening at any point in the
future.
Searching deeper, even their blog, which began in July 2011, began first with a
news post announcing that it was beginning, and in which they posted a list of
suggested posts that could be featured on the blog, of which the IQA was one.
Almost five years later, and the NLI has not even made an informative blog post
regarding the IQA. A blog post that does
mention it is a now defunct Irish History Blog, Pue’s Occurances, on which, in 2009, their contributor Ciarán
Wallace wrote about the IQA at the NLI stating that “much of the history of
late-twentieth century Ireland can be traced through this archive”[9].
More recently, in December 2015, The Christopher Robson Photographic Collection
– a collection of 2000 photographs taken at “pride events in Ireland between
1992 and 2007”[10]
by the late Robson, a founding member of the Gay & Lesbian Equality
Network, was donated to the NLI. I do hope that the new acquisition of the Robson
collection – which sounds like it would make a wonderful exhibit - doesn’t
succumb to the same fate that appears to have befallen the IQA.
With all of this in mind, my question to the National Library is twofold.
Firstly, why are you not fully exploiting this wonderful resource of the Irish
Queer Archive? And secondly, if not now, then when? Whilst it is fantastic that
the IQA is at the NLI and can be consulted, the history of my community – an
archival history that was painstakingly assembled and collected by a dedicated
group over decades – deserves better than languishing in closed stacks. As we
approach, and almost pass-by another Pride, is it too much to hope for our
history to be put on display in the form of a large-scale exhibition and/or a
digitized online collection? At this stage, I’d even settle for the promised
NLI blog post…
[Postscript: I welcome a response, or a dialogue, with the NLI about this
issue.]
15 Jun 2016
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