National Library opens archive of Kilkenny man advocating for LGBTQ Liberation

The National Library of Ireland has announced the availability of ‘The Michael Barron Papers’, tracking Kilkenny man Dr Michael Barron’s life and work as a social justice activist over the past number of decades.

The papers, which are available in person at the library and through the digital archive which now contains the website Michael Barron, is a varied collection of research, toolkits, personal writing, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, campaign strategy, planning notes and reflections and ephemeral materials such as bags and badges. 

Dr Michael Barron, who hails from Glenmore, said: “I am particularly happy that the National Library have chosen to announce the availability of ‘The Michael Barron Papers’ during Pride season. As a gay person and activist I have spent most of my life advocating for LGBTQ Liberation and much of this work is now available at the Library. 

"This year is also the 21st birthday of BeLonG To , the LGBTQ youth advocacy organisation, which I co-founded, so making these papers available is a kind of coming of age for us all."

While the story of social change in Ireland is often told through landmark events, these materials also tell a story of what happened between such events. They tell a story of work and long term strategy that created the conditions that enabled the big events to take place. They tell an untold story of the pursuit of Equality for LGBTQ+ young people over decades, and how this work in turn changed Ireland for all LGBTQ+ people.

Dr Barron continued: “Much of my current work is about promoting a society that we can all belong to and tackling rising hatred towards minority communities. This has been a frightening year for our LGBTQ+ community with intimidation and violence, driven by far right ideology, reaching horrible levels. Recent violence in the Phoenix Park and attacks on our streets show that we all – all of Irish society – need to rally together with a razor sharp commitment to preventing the far right from taking hold.

“I share these papers on the basis that they can be useful. This position - ‘Above All, Be Useful’ - has always guided my approach to social justice and I hope these papers will be useful to researchers, students and anyone interested in activism for social justice. As we live in alarming times we need opportunities for intergenerational learning, and we need the hope that springs from knowing that this is not the first time we have faced many of today’s challenges.

 "The materials relating to my time advocating for LGBTQ+ young people at BeLonG To talk to how we changed the public narrative and public policy towards LGBTQ+ young people in Ireland. The materials here detail the strategies used to change how LGBTQ+ young people felt about themselves, and in order to do this, how we set about changing how Ireland treated LGBTQ+ young people. This includes materials from multiple campaigns, including Aoife Kelleher’s TV documentary ‘Growing Up Gay’ (2010) which brought the lives of LGBTQ youth into most living rooms in the country, and the BeLonG To Yes campaign for Marriage Equality which invited the country to ‘Change forever what it means to grow up LGBTQ+ in Ireland’.”

Also included in the archive is a catalogue of Dr Barron’s engagement with the government during this time and how LGBTQ+ young people went from being unmentionable in public policy to being placed front and centre in too many policies to mention. As well as this, the papers tell the story of the movement for the separation of church and state in Ireland during the first two decades of the Twenty First Century.

Dr Barron concluded: “It’s been a huge privilege to work with so many extraordinary people during the period covered in these papers - with young people who navigated the world with such grace and with fellow activists who fought the good fight. We have so much more to do, and I really hope these papers will be useful in our ongoing battle for liberation for all”