Hidden Lives: The Gay Community in Post-Independence Ireland
Irish History Podcast
Fin Dwyer
4.7 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For Dublin's gay community, Irish Independence and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 heralded anything but freedom. While the new state promised change, the gay community faced decades of repression, arrest, and severe punishment. Yet despite this, they continued to build lives, relationships, and communities in the shadow of fear.
In this episode, I am joined by historian Averill Earls to discuss her book Love in the Lav, a fascinating history of the community in Dublin in the decades after Irish independence. While repression is central to the story, this conversation also uncovers a more complicated picture of the community's relationship with wider Irish society and the ways people navigated a world shaped by surveillance, stigma, and silence.
Become a supporter of the show patreon.com/irishpodcast
Get your copy of Averill's book Love in the Lav
In Ireland - https://www.hodgesfiggis.ie/book/love-in-the-lav/averill-earls/9781439924167
In the US Bookshop.org - https://bookshop.org/p/books/love-in-the-lav-a-social-biography-of-same-sex-desire-in-ireland-1922-1972-averill-earls/99753665e753ea33?ean=9781439924167&next=t
Averill Earls is Associate Professor of History at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast, and co-convener of the Reminiscence and Remembrance Oral History Project for LGBTQ+ Ireland.
Sound: Kate Dunlea
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1922, at the end of the Irish War of Independence, the government of the Irish |
| 0:09.9 | free state promised a brighter future in the decades to come. While poverty and immigration |
| 0:15.8 | remained factors of life, leaving many disillusioned, The gay community had never even been promised a better life. |
| 0:22.6 | If anything, things only got worse, as they were subjected to severe repression. |
| 0:28.6 | Gay men were arrested and they found guilty punished with extremely harsh sentences. |
| 0:34.6 | However, despite this, the community did endure, people continue to live their lives, |
| 0:40.3 | pursue their desires and build relationships, all the while under the fear that a potential |
| 0:45.6 | partner might actually be an undercover member of the Gardee. In this podcast, I'm joined by |
| 0:52.1 | historian Averill Earls, who recently published a book, |
| 0:55.7 | Love in the Lab, which explores life in the gay community in Dublin in the decades following Irish independence. |
| 1:02.2 | While it is a story of repression, there's also a forgotten history, |
| 1:05.8 | where the reactions of Irish society were often more complicated than we might imagine. |
| 1:16.5 | Hello and welcome to the Irish History podcast. My name is Finn DeWar. And today's guest, |
| 1:22.0 | as I mentioned, is Averill Earls. Averill is a historian of Irish sex based in Minnesota in the United States. She's an associate |
| 1:30.1 | professor of history at St. Olaf's College and the executive producer of Dig, a History Podcast. |
| 1:36.7 | She's also the co-convener of the current Reminiscence and Remembrance Oral History Project for |
| 1:42.2 | LGBTIQ Plus Ireland. |
| 1:48.9 | I have links to her book, Love in the Lab, which we're about to discuss now in the show notes below. |
| 1:49.7 | It's not just a history of the gay community, but also the Dublin that these people grew up in, |
| 1:54.9 | lived in and crucially loved in. |
| 1:57.1 | Just a heads up before we get into the episode, there are discussions of sex in this podcast. |
| 2:02.5 | Now on Friday, Dr. Brian Hanley will also be continuing his series, Brothers in Pain, which |
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