Irish Queer Archive
Irish Queer Archive (IQA) (Irish: Cartlann Aerach na hÉireann) is a comprehensive collection of material in Ireland relating to homosexuality, LGBT literature and general queer studies.
The Archive contains the most comprehensive collection of material in Ireland relating to homosexuality in particular and lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender studies in general. There are some quarter million press cuttings from the late 1960s onwards, a library of several hundred international titles (the earliest, a US title, dates from 1951), a complete set of every lesbian/gay title (periodicals and single issues) published since 1974 on the island of Ireland, and a collection of audiovisual material, photographs and slides, flyers, posters, badges and other ephemera. Amongst the private papers and organisational records are the archives of Alternative Miss Ireland, the Dublin Lesbian & Gay Film Festival [GAZE], National LGBT Federation, IGRM, Gay Health Action, GLEN, Lesbians Organising Together (LOT), Dublin LGBT Pride, and Gay Community News (GCN].
The Irish Queer Archive – a vast collection of material which provides insights into the social, cultural and political history of the LGBT communities in an Irish and international context during the latter half of the 20th century – was presented in 2008 to the National Library of Ireland following a decision to donate it by the National LGBT Federation. IQA is a living archive and continues to accept donations and deposits.
Post Stonewall ‘69, Irish lesbian and gay groups and individual activists have laboured to document their history; a history that ultimately touches on all of Irish life in the 20th century. Well-preserved yet incomplete records bear witness to the nascent lesbian and gay civil rights era of the early 1970s. Organisations like the Northern Irish Gay Rights Association (NIGRA), Irish Gay Rights Movement (IGRM) and the National LGBT Federation (NXF) maintained a tradition of preservation with keen foresight, often at considerable expense and with limited human resources.
As one of the largest, oldest and continuous lesbian/gay corporate organisations in Ireland, NLGF has been to the forefront of maintaining some semblance of an archive. From the late ‘70s onwards this was confined to a rudimentary press clippings service and some limited research by, amongst others, activists Edmund Lynch, David Norris and Tom McClean. Like many organisations NXF has also managed to acquire or subsume the interests and records of other smaller, often more specialised, groups. One example of this is the entire archive of Out, Ireland's first commercial monthly gay magazine (1984-1988). The Out holding typically includes proofed manuscripts, original artwork, administrative and financial files, photographs, illustrations and file copies.
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