The Dublin Castle scandal was a controversy involving the administration of British rule in Ireland in 1884. Irish nationalists, including William O'Brien (via United Ireland ), [1] alleged homosexual orgies among the staff at Dublin Castle, the seat of the British government's administration in Ireland until 1922. [2] [3] [4] [5] Following a failed libel action, several members of the administration were convicted of participating in male homosexual acts. [6]
In 1884, William O'Brien accused Gustavus (George) C. Cornwall, [7] head of the General Post Office (GPO) in Ireland, of being a homosexual. [8] In a subsequent five-day libel action, witnesses detailed Cornwall's homosexual relationships with soldiers, in areas including the Botanical Gardens, and his "duchess" nickname. [7] [8] O'Brien won the case, triggering both celebration amongst Irish Nationalists in Dublin and across the country, and a crackdown on homosexual activity by the Royal Irish Constabulary. [8]
Amongst those charged with conspiracy to commit gross indecency was Martin Oranmore Kirwan (1847–1904), a captain in the Royal Irish Fusiliers who was the son of a County Galway Anglo-Irish landlord, [7] [9] [10] following testimony from prostitute John Saul. [11] [12] Kirwan, nicknamed "Lizzie" amongst the men involved, [7] was acquitted on the grounds that the Crown did not produce sufficient evidence, but resigned his commission. [13] [14] Cornwall, who had fled to family in Scotland following his leave of absence from the GPO, [8] was acquitted of buggery charges, but was relieved of his position. [6]
Grocery and wine merchant James Pillar, known as 'Pa' or 'Papa', [7] pleaded guilty to buggery, and was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, the judge noting that Pillar was named in the trials of all the other men. [7] He was released on licence on grounds of ill health in 1894. [7]
The scandal unearthed a thriving gay subculture in the city. [15] [16]
Southern Illinois University Carbondale's Kevin Dettmar has stated that the scandal "paved the way" for the Labouchere Amendment, which made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. [17] [4]
Talks on the scandal have been hosted by Heritage Ireland at the Castle. [18]
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism.
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, was a British nobleman of the Victorian era, remembered for his atheism, his outspoken views, his brutish manner, for lending his name to the "Queensberry Rules" that form the basis of modern boxing, and for his role in the downfall of the Irish author and playwright Oscar Wilde.
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, also known as Bosie Douglas, was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of Oscar Wilde. At Oxford he edited an undergraduate journal, The Spirit Lamp, that carried a homoerotic subtext, and met Wilde, starting a close but stormy relationship. Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, abhorred it and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality. Wilde sued him for criminal libel, but some intimate notes were found and Wilde was later imprisoned. On his release, he briefly lived with Douglas in Naples, but they had separated by the time Wilde died in 1900. Douglas married a poet, Olive Custance, in 1902 and had a son, Raymond.
Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, PC, PC (Ire), from 1900 to 1921 known as Sir Edward Carson, was an Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge, who was the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England, Wales and Ireland as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for the British Royal Navy. From 1905 Carson was both the Irish Unionist Alliance MP for the Dublin University constituency and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast. In 1915, he entered the war cabinet of H. H. Asquith as Attorney-General. Carson was defeated in his ambition to maintain Ireland as a whole in union with Great Britain. His leadership, however, was celebrated by some for securing a continued place in the United Kingdom for the six north-eastern counties, albeit under a devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland that neither he nor his fellow unionists had sought. He is also remembered for his open ended cross examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that led to plaintiff Wilde being prosecuted, gaoled and ruined. Carson unsuccessfully attempted to intercede for Wilde after the case.
Molly house or molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men and gender-nonconforming people. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses or even private rooms where patrons could either socialise or meet possible sexual partners.
The Rt Rev. and Hon. Percy Jocelyn was Anglican Bishop of Clogher in the Church of Ireland from 1820 to 1822. He was forced from his position due to being caught in homosexual practices, which had been outlawed under the Buggery Act 1533.
Events from the year 1895 in Ireland.
The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel and house of assignation on Cleveland Street, London, was discovered by police. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of aristocratic and other prominent patrons.
Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland is a British biographer and editor. He is the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde, whose life he has researched and written about extensively.
Timothy Charles Harrington was an Irish journalist, barrister, nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
LGBT themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
Events from the year 1884 in Ireland.
This is a list of important events relating to the LGBT community from 1801 to 1900. The earliest published studies of lesbian activity were written in the early 19th century.
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood and defined by many courts and jurisdictions to include any or all forms of sexual acts that are illegal, illicit, unlawful, unnatural and immoral. Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, manual sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced to target against sexual activities between individuals of the opposite sex, and have mostly been used to target against sexual activities between individuals of the same sex.
Irish Queer Archive (IQA) is a comprehensive collection of material in Ireland relating to homosexuality, LGBT literature and general queer studies.
The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism, by the pseudonymous "Jack Saul", is one of the first exclusively homosexual works of pornographic literature published in English. The book was first published in 1881 by William Lazenby, who printed 250 copies. A second edition was published by Leonard Smithers in 1902. It sold for an expensive four guineas.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the United Kingdom. There is evidence that LGBT activity in the United Kingdom existed as far back as the days of Celtic Britain.
John Saul, also known as Jack Saul, and Dublin Jack, was an Irish prostitute. He featured in two major homosexual scandals, and as a character in two works of pornographic literature of the period. Considered "notorious in Dublin and London" and "made infamous by the sensational testimony he gave in the Cleveland Street scandal", which was published in newspapers around the world, he has recently been the subject of scholarly analysis and speculation. One reason is the paucity of information on the lives and outlook of individual male prostitutes of the period. Saul has also come to be seen by some as a defiant individual in a society that sought to repress him: "a figure of abjection who refuses his status".