This is quite a lengthy blog post but it gives an absolutely fascinating insight in a story of the underground gay subculture of Dublin in the 1880s…
The Dublin Castle homosexual scandal of 1884 is a complex story. It involves more than a dozen characters that were introduced over a series of separate criminal trials. All sections of society were involved. The upper echelons of serving police detectives, eminent civil servants and British Army captains. Aspirational middle-class bank clerks and Trinity college graduates. Right down to the semi-blind brothel-keepers and young male prostitutes who were described as “persons of the lowest class of life”. All of these men were accused in newspapers and in court of having same-sex physical relationships. Irish society was shocked.
My main interest is in one specific aspect of the scandal – the backgrounds and post-prison lives of three men who were convicted of running homosexual brothels in the city in 1884.
But before that, a very brief background.
Tim Healy (Irish Nationalist MP) accused two high-ranking British establishment figures, of being homosexual in the United…
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In the Dark 