Queer Notions: New Plays and Performances from Ireland

Introduction: The Flaming Archive

1 Introduction: The Flaming Archive FINTAN WALSH [Y]ou must never underestimate the sheer historical depth of homophobia in Ireland. And that exists in the theatre as well – perhaps it’s even more pronounced in the theatre, where there is this almost heterosexual panic in case you engage too deeply with gay issues. Frank McGuinness, Irish Times1 ‘Archival’ memory exists as documents, maps, literary texts, letters, archaeological remains, bones, videos, films, CDs, all those items supposedly resistant to change . . . the repertoire, on the other hand, enacts embodied memory: performances, gestures, orality, movement , dance, singing – in short, all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge. Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire2 [A]n archive of sexuality, and gay and lesbian life . . . must preserve and produce not just knowledge but feeling. Ann Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings3 A Queer Climate It is 14 January 2010, and I am listening to RTÉ Radio 1 while preparing this manuscript. Pat Kenny introduces a panel on homosexuality and religion. In the wake of the Ryan and Murphy reports, and ongoing debates concerning same-sex partnership and marriage legislation, this kind of discussion is not unusual. Although many people have been celebrating the secularization of Irish society for some time now, it still remains commonplace for sexual matters to be measured against religious convention. Much of this pattern has recently been shaped by 2 Fintan Walsh attempts to hold the Catholic Church accountable for the sexual violence it inflicted on its faithful, while simultaneously regulating dogmatic morality. However, the constant recourse to religious tenets also reveals the nation’s continued difficulty with thinking about sexuality almost as anything other than a matter of religious reference. There is a Kafkaesque quality to this dynamic, as authority is unveiled as corrupt, and ostensibly rejected, only to be preserved through the repetition of a nuanced form of antagonism. On this occasion, four speakers are present: Brian Finnegan, editor of Gay Community News; Gina Menzies, a liberal theologian; John Murray, lecturer in moral theology at Mater Dei Institute of Education in Dublin; and Ali Saleem, theologian and secretary to the imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland. While Finnegan describes how the Church has isolated him and many of his generation, and Menzies challenges readings of the Bible used to condemn gay people, the other two speakers provide more stringent contributions. Murray underscores the natural ‘complementarity of the male and female body’, while Saleem appeals to his belief that God created the world ‘in pairs’ as evidence for the immorality of homosexuality.4 This debate followed a number of other high-profile instances of sexual panic that ushered in the new year. The first included the revelation that Democratic Unionist Party politician and Evangelical Pentecostalist Iris Robinson had an illicit relationship with a nineteenyear -old family friend in 2007, while also acquiring him money from two separate property developers to establish a small business. The affair took place around the time Robinson denounced homosexuality as an‘abomination ’ on BBC Radio Ulster, while advising that she knew a ‘lovely psychiatrist’ who could help those afflicted.5 Another incident involved Pope Benedict XVI embellishing his well-known thoughts on same-sex relationships, by criticizing ‘laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes’, while stressing that ‘for man, the path to be taken cannot be determined by caprice or wilfulness, but must rather correspond to the structure willed by the creator.’6 This comment came one year after his suggestion in December 2008 that ‘saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.’7 But perhaps the most significant event of all was the amendment of the Defamation Act that took effect on 1 January 2010, and which rendered blasphemy illegal under Irish law. Introduction 3 While listening to the panel discussion on the day in question, I received an e-mail from my contact at Cork University Press. The board had concerns that some of the material included here might contravene the blasphemy law, and suggested that sections should be cut. Understandably, perhaps, there were concerns surrounding section 36 of the Act, which states: (1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000 [amended...