homosexuality illegal in ireland

positivenote

HI all, can someone clarify for me wether it was illegal in ireland prior to 1993 to be gay? could you actually be charged with being homosexual or was it homosexual acts that where outlawed and once you didn't practice these acts then you could not be criminalised?
thanks

hare05

positivenote wrote: »

HI all, can someone clarify for me wether it was illegal in ireland prior to 1993 to be gay? could you actually be charged with being homosexual or was it homosexual acts that where outlawed and once you didn't practice these acts then you could not be criminalised?
thanks

The usual religious sodomy laws I guess.

ixoy

Sodomy laws. They could never make it illegal to actually be gay but it was the act themselves. This being in keeping with the teachings of the Catholic Church seeing the act itself as the sin. So you could be a happy gay if you were prepared to be celibate your whole life.

shoegirl

positivenote wrote: »

HI all, can someone clarify for me wether it was illegal in ireland prior to 1993 to be gay? could you actually be charged with being homosexual or was it homosexual acts that where outlawed and once you didn't practice these acts then you could not be criminalised?
thanks

No it was not illegal to be gay, it was illegal for a man to have sex with another man.

In practice it had not been enforced for many years.

shoegirl

ixoy wrote: »

Sodomy laws. They could never make it illegal to actually be gay but it was the act themselves. This being in keeping with the teachings of the Catholic Church seeing the act itself as the sin. So you could be a happy gay if you were prepared to be celibate your whole life.

It was nothing whatsoever to do with catholicism, the law as it then stood belonged to inherited British law from the 1860s. Same law more or less as existing in England and Wales up to the 1960s.

Aard

Even if the Irish didn't bring it in, it's not like they got rid of it quickly either. I could only attribute that very late abolition to the influence of the Church.

wonderfulname

The judgment of the European Court was delivered on 26 October 1988. It found that our laws in relation to homosexual offences are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights in that they interfere with the right to respect for private life under article 8.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The legislation is at sections 61 and 62 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861 and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1885. Section 61 of the 1861 Act provides that whosoever shall be convicted of the “abominable crime of buggery committed with mankind or with any animal shall be liable to life imprisonment.” Section 62 provides that an attempt to commit buggery carries a penalty on conviction of up to ten years imprisonment. Section 11 of the 1885 Act makes it an offence for any male person, in public or in private, to commit or to be a party to the commission by any male person of any gross indecency with another male person.

That quote covers exactly what the law was, its the only online source I can find that does so, it also points out how long we were knowingly in breach of the EU Convention on Human Rights.
It comes from a 1990 Seanad debate which can be viewed in its entirety here. David Norris makes a fantastic speech in that, its well worth the read.

I am not old enough to know but I don't believe the law was enforced in its final years, in fact The George was trading openly before the law was abolished.

As has already been pointed out it was abolished in 1993 via the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993, which you can view in its entirety here, bear in mind there have been numerous updates to the law since this Act so most of it is meaningless.
From the relevant section:

2.—Subject to sections 3 and 5 of this Act, any rule of law by virtue of which buggery between persons is an offence is hereby abolished.

Hooray for progress! It amazes me how long those laws stood unaltered.

Elirlandes

shoegirl wrote: »

No it was not illegal to be gay, it was illegal for a man to have sex with another man.

In practice it had not been enforced for many years.

I think that you will find that what was illegal was "buggery between persons", thus prohibiting heterosexual anal sex as well... The illegal act required penetration to have taken place.

wonderfulname

Elirlandes wrote: »

I think that you will find that what was illegal was "buggery between persons", thus prohibiting heterosexual anal sex as well... The illegal act required penetration to have taken place.

Once again;

Section 11 of the 1885 Act makes it an offence for any male person, in public or in private, to commit or to be a party to the commission by any male person of any gross indecency with another male person.

Define "Gross indecency", I think it is pretty clear they covered all their bases on that one.
But yes the buggery one did cover anyone.

Azure_sky

It was illegal but the legislation itself was implemented by the British, the same legislation which put Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol. De Valera just decided to leave it there to appease the Catholic church. Being gay itself was not illegal, just the act of anal sex. During Irish independence it was not enforced as long as both parties were above the age of consent.

Elirlandes

Azure_sky wrote: »

It was illegal but the legislation itself was implemented by the British, the same legislation which put Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol. De Valera just decided to leave it there to appease the Catholic church. Being gay itself was not illegal, just the act of anal sex. During Irish independence it was not enforced as long as both parties were above the age of consent.

In fairness, De Valera would appear to have taken church teaching on most things pretty seriously, and I doubt that it was merely a passive act of leaving the legislation in place as an act of appeasement to the church.

In addition to the actual threat of prosecution under the law, the mere fact that such legislation continued to be in effect in Ireland, whether acted upon or not, was clearly conducive to an oppressive and exclusionist society for gays in Ireland over the years. I for one am embarrassed that our nation took so long to see fit to make a start on provision of equal rights for all.

Azure_sky

Elirlandes wrote: »

In fairness, De Valera would appear to have taken church teaching on most things pretty seriously, and I doubt that it was merely a passive act of leaving the legislation in place as an act of appeasement to the church.

Believe it or not De Valera wasn't conservative enough for the Church. They didn't like his economic policies and made allegations of him tacitly supporting Communism. Also the church were not content with Dev making Ireland (technically) a secular state, albeit with a "special relationship" with the Catholic church. They wanted Catholicism to be the official state religion.

positivenote

thanks one and all for the thorough explaination.

Coeurdepirate

What did they do to you if you were caught back then? Surely you weren't jailed?

LegacyUser

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

What did they do to you if you were caught back then? Surely you weren't jailed?

The only way you could really be caught would be if the person you did it with reprted you. That obviously wouldn't be likely. Additonally, David Norris admitted it in the High Court and Supreme Court and nothing was ever done to him.

Annasopra

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

What did they do to you if you were caught back then? Surely you weren't jailed?

Well Oscar Wilde was jailed

Aard

When I think about it, I still can't believe it was only 1993. What a f.ucked up place

Bottle_of_Smoke

I didn't know it applied to heterosexual anal sex too.

The law is the reason being gay was such a serious issue if you were involved in organised crime. Police would threaten known gay criminals with the charge unless they agreed to inform on others.

Coeurdepirate

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Well Oscar Wilde was jailed

For how long? :O

diddlybit

Two years with hard labour. He wrote De Profundis while there, in which he said:

To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

LegacyUser

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Well Oscar Wilde was jailed

Yes, but that was under British Rule. Edward Carson led the prosecution iirc. Wilde initiated the case himself for being allegedly slandered as having committed buggery. The only way for the alleged slanderer to escape a finding that he had in fact committed a libelous act was to prove Wilde engaged in buggery, which he did and thus Wilde was covicted. Basically that was what happened iirc. Our history teacher explained it to us once a few years ago (as Carson was a key personality on our course), but I think the basic facts are all there.

Azure_sky

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Well Oscar Wilde was jailed

I think that was more to do with Presbyterian/Victorian puritanism more than Catholicism to be honest Johnny. I don't think it was utilised since Irish independence. It was Carson I believe, a bigoted man who would become a prominent politician in Northern Irish politics, who went for the jugular in court. And despite the great amount of respect I do have for Oscar as an intellectual, which is a lot, he did sleep with people who were slightly under age. I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right-please correct me if I'm wrong. Having said that I'm sure they would have convicted him even if he slept with a load of old farts.

Actually this gives me an idea for a thread...

Elirlandes

diddlybit wrote: »

Two years with hard labour. He wrote De Profundis while there, in which he said:

And famously, the Ballad of Reading Gaol when he got out... worth a read...

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

stephen_n

Azure_sky wrote: »

Believe it or not De Valera wasn't conservative enough for the Church. They didn't like his economic policies and made allegations of him tacitly supporting Communism. Also the church were not content with Dev making Ireland (technically) a secular state, albeit with a "special relationship" with the Catholic church. They wanted Catholicism to be the official state religion.

It's well documented that De Valera stopped at the arch bishops palace to talk to McQuaid before continuing to the Phoenix park to enact any laws and that on more than one occasion didn't make it to the park subject to that conversation.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Azure_sky wrote: »

I think that was more to do with Presbyterian/Victorian puritanism more than Catholicism to be honest Johnny. I don't think it was utilised since Irish independence. It was Carson I believe, a bigoted man who would become a prominent politician in Northern Irish politics, who went for the jugular in court. And despite the great amount of respect I do have for Oscar as an intellectual, which is a lot, he did sleep with people who were slightly under age. I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right-please correct me if I'm wrong. Having said that I'm sure they would have convicted him even if he slept with a load of old farts.

Actually this gives me an idea for a thread...

I think carson gets hard done by in the recollections. He was actually defending the guy Wilde falsely accused of slandering. And I don't have a source but I'm sure I read Carson objected to Wilde being charged for sodomy

Plautus

stephen_n wrote: »

It's well documented that De Valera stopped at the arch bishops palace to talk to McQuaid before continuing to the Phoenix park to enact any laws and that on more than one occasion didn't make it to the park subject to that conversation.

The case for this has been over-stated, given that such meetings of clergy and politicians were de rigueur (even up to the days of Bertie Ahern.) He certainly didn't stop at the Archbishop's palace before 'any' (!) law was passed. You'd have tremendous difficulty trying to show documentary proof of that. It would also be impossible to order changes to a bill which has been through three readings and is being sent forward for assent, at such a late stage. So that's disingenuous to suggest.

In any event, the Church wasn't exactly delighted with Bunreacht na hEireann and had been agitating for something like the accommodation reached in Fascist Italy. The configuration of the new Seanad was, for example, a sop to Catholic Social Teaching and the Italian political experiment of corporatism but designed to be utterly ineffectual at the same time. DeValera clearly had his own mind, and optics are just that. The fact that the constitution also instanced minority religions infuriated the bishops. If DeValera practiced Catholic morality it was because he believed in it himself and not because the dog-collars were somehow coercing him.

DeValera did speak out against the likes of the sectarian Fethard-on-Sea boycott in 1957, for example, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethard-on-Sea_boycott So he wasn't an unreconstructed Catholic by any means: even if he was religious. You have to remember too that the Republican movement and the Church had not exactly been supportive of each other during the war of independence. And Dev had a long memory ...

The most widely cited case of the Church influencing government policy; on Noel Browne's 1951 Mother and Child scheme, arguably suffered more for the red-scare accusations of communism in the middle of what was then the first phase of the Cold War. Just to show that it isn't nearly so simplistic as Church=State in Ireland prior to the 1970s.