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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social

@drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social
3.2K followers 2.9K following 2.5K posts

Snr. Lecturer in 18th-century Studies (Queer & Disability Studies). Author of *Effeminate Years* (2017); co-editor of *The Edinburgh Companion to Queer Reading* (2025). Writes poetry & short fiction.

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John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 13h
Think I asked this a while back but it anyone has any reading on auctioning the goods of the dead in 16th- and 17th-century London, and/or the role of bellmen and criers around deaths and auctions, I'd be very grateful for recommendations!
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Crazed Viking era
A picture of me
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
New article just published in ‘Èire-Ireland’ Journal on the queer Irish novel and death in the Irish diaspora #IrishStudies #queerliterature #queernovel #Irishdiaspora
Éire-Ireland
© Dying to Be Seen: AIDS, Diaspora, and the Queer Irish Novel
Declan Kavanagh
Éire-Ireland
Irish-American Cultural Institute
Volume 61, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2026
pp. 259-283
10.1353/eir.2026.a1001973
Article
View Citation
Additional Information
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M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Legacy of Slavery - My family and Bristol
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June Caldwell @junec.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My story 'Púca1' is over the line for 'Ag Dul Siar', an anthology published January 2027 by Hotel Doolin and Banner Books, to mark its 20th anniversary. Includes work from writers, musicians, artists, photographers, folklorists and cultural figures, whose work speaks to the spirit of the place.
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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 25/09/2026
I turned up at Waterstones in Worthing to sign some new stock of QUEER ORIGINS and was absolutely bowled over to be greeted by this in prime position in the shop window! It's so uplifting when booksellers get behind one's book. 💜🌈📚🦋🗃️ #book #books #booksky #authors #reading #histsci #queerhistory
Photo taken from outside a shop window. There's a copy of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks displayed upright. Next to it is some text about the book in a wooden frame. It reads: 'Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life' 'Dr Ross Brooks' 'What did Darwin and Linnaeus really think about sex? In this iconoclastic history, Brooks shows how queerness was at the heart of evolutionists’ thinking about the natural world. From hermaphroditic slugs and sex-changing birds to male pigeon lactation, pregnant male seahorses, and bisexual pigs, Darwin and his fellow naturalists were privately in awe of nature’s sexual diversity. These encounters fundamentally shaped their understanding of plants, animals, and humans, even if they were never fully acknowledged in their published writings. Brooks radically exposes us to the hidden queerness of Georgian and Victorian science—and shows how nature has always been more sexually diverse than we’ve been told.'
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’ve been wrestling with the villanelle form and am afraid it has broken me! It really doesn’t allow for any give! Anyway, here’s a poem about the oldest tree in Ireland (or so I was told). #villanelle #Kildare #Maynooth #Cromabú #poetry
Yew Tree at Maynooth
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Strange melodies coiled in roots underground.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Fingers pluck lute strings, dull notes falling stark.
Sanguineous arils hang heavy and round.
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Bréagadóiri tricks cast wide for a lark.
Russet-red fissure where poison is found.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Stanihurst's 'brainless boy' fighting monarch or Pale and Gael hero at last unbound?
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Crom abú to St. Mary's in rebel arc.
To surrender sword, the Council confound.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Leave our shores! Now English-born must embark.
Under siege, stone walls artillery pound.
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
What a nice surprise - my contributor copy of Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an dá chultúr Volume 41 2026 arrived. Belinda wants me to read it all in one go! #18thcentury #irishstudies
Tabby cat (the most beautiful) on an orange stool next to a volume of essays - orange cover.
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Dr Eleanor Shaw @eleanorshaw.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Fancy coming to work with me at the British Library? Part time for 18 months, collecting oral histories about covid and thinking about covid commemoration. www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/jobs/job/228...
nationalmuseums.org.uk
Jobs - National Museum Directors' Council Website
Association of directors and chief executives of the UK's national museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Of course AI could wipe out humans. Just look at who created it.
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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's happening! 'Killjoy Comedy: Willful Women and 1750s Fiction' is coming out with @uvapress.bsky.social in February 2027. @sinsleyh.bsky.social says it is 'a ROMP'. I am *floored* @bsecs.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social #18thcentury #c18th www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10256/
A dour looking elite woman is sitting side-saddle on a horse, followed by a ridiculous supercilious little dog. The title of the book, in hot pink, is KILLJOY COMEDY.
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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Solidarity with this Piddington resident ♥️✊ #Newsnight
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Joel Herman @joelherman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The new issue of Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr is out now and open access (not sure if this is temporary or not). Use the link below to view the special anniversary issue. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/10.3828/...
liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Contents | Eighteenth-Century Ireland 41,
This article surveys writings on the history of eighteenth-century Ireland over the first forty years of the journal Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá Chultúr. Commissioned to mark the journal’s fortieth anniversary, it adopts a cautiously ...
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Leading a creative writing workshop on Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) in Special Collections at Kent, writing objects and subjects big and small. Wed 28 Oct, 2pm until 4pm, Templeman Library. Email D.kavanagh@kent.ac.uk to reserve a place. #CreativeWriting #GulliversTravels
Writing Big and Small after Gulliver
A Creative Workshop
Dr Swift
First published in 1726, the first two books of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels turn on a single trick played in opposite directions: shrink the world around its narrator, and even the smallest objects and gestures of Lilliputian court life become petty and absurd; leave him ordinary-sized among the giants of Brobdingnag, and the plainest objects, and the bodies of the people who use them, become overwhelming, even repulsive, at close range. This workshop invites participants to think about their chosen objects or subjects in both big and small ways, using inspiration from the Special Collections holdings to write other worlds into existence.
Date: Wednesday 28 October 2026
Time: 2.00pm - 4.00pm
Venue: Special Collections & Archives, Templeman Library, University of Kent,
Canterbury
Led by: Dr Declan Kavanagh
Places limited - materials provided - all levels welcome
To reserve a place, email D.kavanagh@kent.ac.uk
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BSECS @bsecs.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
***BREAKING NEWS*** We have extended the deadline on our #CFP by 5 days to give those of you that missed our early deadline another chance! New deadline: 20 September 2026 Get writing! #skystorians #18thC 🗃️ www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/...
bsecs.org.uk
BSECS Annual Conference
BSECS Annual Conference: the annual meeting of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is Europe's largest and most prestigious annual conference
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Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Completely wild
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Jessica R Valdez @jrvaldez.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
We're hiring in the long eighteenth century at LSU. Please spread the word and let me know if you have any questions. It's a wonderful department to work in! lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0210...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor - 18th-Century British Literature
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Noah Chaskin @chaskin.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Any of my disability studies folks have a favorite reading to introduce students to chronic illness and/as disability? (I use Susan Wendell's "Unhealthy Disabled" and it is good, but I'm doing a lot of updating this semester.)
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The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 13/09/2026
The five-decade love story of a forgotten Irish literary power couple
irishtimes.com
The five-decade love story of a forgotten Irish literary power couple
Padraic Colum’s death made front-page news in the New York Times in 1972, while F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway feared his wife Mary’s rapier wit
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New article out now in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (vol. 41): '"A picture presented to all our Senses": Vision in Gulliver's Travels and Michael Clancy's Memoirs'. doi.org/10.3828/eci....
doi.org
‘A picture presented to all our Senses’: Vision in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Michael Clancy’s Memoirs (1750) | Eighteenth-Century Ireland
Sir, Some Friend of mine lent me a Comedy, which I am told was written by you: I read it carefully, and with much Pleasure, on Account both of the Characters, and the Moral. I have no Interest with the People of the Play-house, else I should gladly ...
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Launch for Issue 19 of The Alchemy Spoon: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-launch... Register for a ticket. Online event. September 17th 7.30pm GMT #newpoetry #poetryreadings @thealchemyspoon.bsky.social
eventbrite.com
The launch of Issue 19 of The Alchemy Spoon
Readings from selected posts and an open mic
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Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'
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Katherine Weikert @kateweikert.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A very quick turn around because of paperwork, but we're hiring a one year post in Modern British History! Please have a look and share widely with anyone interested! Happy to take informal queries at the email in the job posting! www.winchester.ac.uk/About-Us/Wor...
winchester.ac.uk
Work with us - University of Winchester
Explore the University of Winchester and discover your new career. We have a variety of positions in academic and professional services. Work with us.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I am disconcerted by the scenes in Dover and just left thinking that even if small boat crossings were somehow stopped forever today this wouldn’t materially impact upon any of the black cladded ‘protestors’ one jot. Scapegoating is about distraction. It’s a dead end.
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Dr Anke Marsh @ankemarsh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Just so we are clear: The 83yo priest on the left is a terrorist. The balaclava-clad men on the right are protestors with legitimate concerns
A photo from the BBC of an older woman, with grey hair, being led away by police. A photograph of a line of men in black clothes and balaclavas blocking the port at Dover.
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Siobhán McElduff @siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This is what woke took from us.
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Leonie V. Hicks @lvhicks.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
As promised (threatened), here is a brief Norman history reading list for those who want to know more. It's not comprehensive becuase i haven't got all day, but it is a starting point normanlandscapes.wordpress.com/2026/09/03/l... #Normans #medievalsky #skystorians #BayeuxTapestry.
normanlandscapes.wordpress.com
Leonie’s Norman History reading list!
The blog has been quiet for a while [gestures at UK HE problems], but given BBC Radio 4 is having a Normans day to mark the opening of the Bayeux Tapestry, it seemed sensible to put up some sensibl…
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
www.instagram.com/reel/Dcx-PvN...
instagram.com
Instagram
Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I just received my copy of issue 19 of @thealchemyspoon.bsky.social , which features my poem ‘A Stranger’s Gift’ amongst stellar company. It is a poem about organ donation and if you have time to reflect upon it please do consider your own wishes and let these wishes be known to your next of kin.
Cover with child’s tricycle A Stranger's Gift
For the donor and his family
On an evening in the bleakest October, in the life of a family, the phone call came. She was sleeping.
Her daughter woke her and packed a small bag.
Coaxing her mother like a child, they set out for Dublin. It was now time.
After months of neon glow. Of night itch.
Of children quietly lifting the weight of a history.
Of an origin. Though they would sooner die than let go each knew the malignancy of feathered stirrings.
Each knew no matter the grip it could pass through fingers like water.
But now she would arrive. Now she would sit on a white bed with a crow on her back.
The daughter nervously watching its beak jab as concerned nurses whisper about fire.
Earlier, that evening,
in the worst day, in the worst hour, in the entire life of another family, a miracle was ordained.
In another room, in another city, in another history, a sweet prayer was sung.
The saintly man would indeed gift all he could not take.
No tongue can truly speak this humanity.
Only that the doctors returned to Dublin cradling a faint spark.
They tell the daughter to leave.
She leaves the room. She holds her breath.
There is nothing for her to do now but trace the twinkling of star light. Nothing for her to see but a stranger's final gift blazing bright as a feasting bird slowly takes flight.
Declan Kavanagh
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Charlie Lynch @charlielynch.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Let’s try again: I’d like to hear about new research from Scottish historians. Especially ECRs whose work may not get much attention. This is because I have a newspaper column where I publicise new work by Scottish historians! Tell me about your research!
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Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 28/08/2026
Israeli restrictions on food entry are stalling recovery from famine in Gaza as malnutrition cases climb, an IPC report finds. Two-year-old Hashem Abu Mustafa, born hungry in a Rafah tent, may already be beyond saving. mondoweiss.net/2026/08/gaza...
mondoweiss.net
Gaza isn’t able to recover from famine as acute malnutrition soars across the Strip, new report finds
Israeli restrictions on food entry are stalling recovery from famine in Gaza as malnutrition cases climb, an IPC report finds. Two-year-old Hashem Abu Mustafa, born hungry in a Rafah tent, may…
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will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
academic freedom: to be clear, of course cofnas shouldn’t have lost his job he should never have had the job. happy to clear that up
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Laura McAtackney @lauramca.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
It’s quite something seeing the (long) list of people who claim to work on social justice issues in archaeology who are prepared to go to EAA in Athens this year, sometimes sharing sessions with people involved in illegal excavations in the West Bank. bdsmovement.net/news/europea...
bdsmovement.net
European Association of Archaeologists Is Welcoming Scholars Knowingly Participating in a War Crime
The EAA is welcoming scholars from Hebrew University, which is partially built on land illegally expropriated from Palestinians in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, to its annual meeting, Sept 2-6.
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Dr Andrew McInnes @drbeard79.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
CFP for the Brontes and the Supernatural symposium for next September in Haworth - deadline New Year’s Eve
bronte.org.uk
Haunt me, then! - The Brontës and the Supernatural Symposium | The Brontë Parsonage Museum
CALL FOR PAPERSThe Brontë Parsonage Museum’s 2027 special exhibition will focus on the Brontës’ fascination with the supernatural, and we invite proposals
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Delighted that my poem ‘Red Kite’ has found a home in ‘The AfterShock Review’ #poetry #TheAfterShockReview #disabilitypoetics @maxwallis.bsky.social
Your work has been accepted for Issue Four - Red
Kite
External
TA
The Aftershock Review via Duosuma
To You
18:05
You don't often get email from aa678em4r-qr7a3k-2tfax4@duosuma.com. Learn why this is important
Dear Declan,
Thank you for submitting to The Aftershock Review.
We're delighted to let you know that we would like to publish your work in Issue Four.
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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
in a world of JK Rowlings be a Dolly Parton
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
So sad to hear the news. Dolly was one of a kind.
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Danny Fearns @dannyfearns.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Good morning Bluesky ☀️ This is one of the last coal powered sheep. The vast majority of UK sheep are now all electric ⚡️
Sheep grazing in fields, the one in the foreground with white smoke apparently coming out of its bottom
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I got one of those Sydney Book Club emails!
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Dr Andrew McInnes @drbeard79.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
True in UK too
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Literal terminal sickness in the sector
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Bridget Phillipson MP @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Exasperatedly looking to the sky when asked whether you support Ukraine… The ‘admiration’ for Putin seems to run deep in Reform UK.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 25/08/2026
The largest and oldest Black studies departments in the country have been closed, but a bunch of people decided the eugenics guy was the crucible for academic freedom.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is just going to get more frequent isn’t it? #VoteGreen
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Lawks a lumme! A permanent literary studies job in the UK! In British Romantic literature! ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’!
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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 24/08/2026
Last call for this fantastic offer as the month draws to a close . . . Several bookshops are discounting QUEER ORIGINS but I think this is still the best price (£17.50 & free UK postage). Make the most of it while you can! #books #booksky #histsci #histsex #queerhistory @yalebooks.bsky.social 🌈📚🦋🗃️
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Matthew Roberts @matqbritholiday.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSf_... Thank you @antiquaries.bsky.social QUEERING THE BRITISH HOLIDAY
youtube.com
Queering the British Holiday
YouTube video by SocAntiquaries
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
These proofs were hiding in my junk inbox. This article explores death and dying in the queer Irish novel focusing on the work of Colm Toíbín and Katherine O’Donnell & AIDS representation, the Irish diaspora, and temporality. Out in Éire-Ireland in the coming weeks #IrishStudies #QueerNovel
DECLAN KAVANAGH Dying to Be Seen: AIDS,
Diaspora, and the Queer Irish Novel
LITERARY NARRATIVES that explore queer identities within the Irish diaspora have garnered critical attention over the last decade in Irish studies. Focusing upon queer subjects in women's migrant litera-ture, Tina O'Toole has explored the "ways in which queer kinship and migrant affinities unsettle the fixities of family and place in Irish culture. Moreover, Ed Madden has argued that the study of queer Irish sexualities constitutes a diasporic project in and of itself. This article builds upon O'Toole's and Madden's important readings
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Crab and Winkle way 🚴🏻‍♂️
Bleached field with sky Blean Woods99 cone that cost 4.50Strava cycle route
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