UNVEILING OUR PAST
and concepts relating to chronology, evidence, causation, historical empathy and perspective. It fulfils curriculum requirements under the strand ‘Politics, conflict and society’ while also developing the historical skills required in the curriculum for 5th and 6th class pupils. It also contains a focus on the development of core English skills related to reading comprehension. The resource includes lesson plans, printable pupil resources (including primary sources) and supporting ancillary material. The resource begins with a problem solving activity for the pupils where they need to create a timeline of various LGBT+ related events including the founding of Urania by Eva Gore-Booth, the arrest and prosecution of Oscar Wilde, the campaign for decriminalisation headed by David Norris,
NEW LGBT+ HISTORY RESOURCE FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS By Cecelia Gavigan
the passing of the Gender Recognition Act, the referendum on same sex marriage and the appointment of the first openly gay Taoiseach. The next lesson teaches pupils the history of Pride from a global perspective and how that struggle manifested in Ireland relating the stories of Stonewall and also the events surrounding the murder of Declan Flynn. Lesson Three looks at ten pieces of evidence from the Cork LGBT Archive including a series of correspondence between LGBT+ groups in Cork and the local newspapers regarding a dispute about printing advertisements relating to LGBT+ matters; a newspaper article about the first LGBT+ float in the Cork St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and photographs of LGBT+ activism featuring Cork Gay Collective, Laurie Steele, Arthur Leahy and Tony O Regan. The resource also features three case studies on ‘LGBT+ Rights Trailblazers’ which relate the stories of David Norris, Dr Lydia Foy, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan. The sequence of work concludes with lessons asking the pupils to create a project that will communicate what they have learned and present this project to their class, As noted, the primary sources included in the document relate to the specific struggle for LGBT+ rights in Cork. The primary reason for this was accessibility. Due to the immense work of Orla Egan and the Cork LGBT+ Archive, these documents, photographs and artefacts are all freely available to members of the public to use and so could be included in the resource. However, having the primary sources centred on Cork fulfils a wider objective also.
‘Unveiling Our Past: The Struggle for LGBT+ Rights in Ireland’ is a new
Too often are the concepts of Pride and LGBT+ activism thought of as something pertaining to Dublin and to Dublin alone. Incorporating real evidence of the work of activists in Cork in the resource serves in some way to counter this narrative. The struggle for equal rights in Ireland for LGBT+ people is, and always has been, a national project. As Eleanor Roosevent might describe it, ‘it happens in small places, close to home - so small and so close that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world’. The resource is the latest addition to those provided by the INTO LGBT+ Teachers’ Group to teachers to support them in developing LGBT+ inclusive practices in their schools. The group is a sub group of the wider INTO union whose aim is to support and advance the cause of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender primary school teachers in Ireland and advocate for LGBT+ inclusion in primary school. The group run the annual ‘Different Families, Same Love’ competition which calls on teachers to take action in their classrooms to celebrate the diversity of people and families in Ireland and to address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in school. This competition usually runs between International Family Equality Day and International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia on May 17th with the winners announced during June to coincide with Pride month. Other resources the group have developed for use in schools include the ‘Different Families, Same Love’ teaching resource, the ‘LGBT+ Inclusive Staffroom’ poster and a series of inclusive
book recommendations linking in with World Book Day. Their webpage also showcases good practice videos for teachers related to dealing with LGBT+ based bullying, supporting a child socially transitioning and how to answer questions pupils may have in relation to LGBT+ matters. ‘Unveiling Our Past: The Struggle for LGBT+ Rights in Ireland’ was launched on the 16th June and is available under the ‘Educational Resources’ tab on www.into.ie/lgbt. The INTO LGBT+ Teachers’ Group can be found on Facebook (@intolgbteachersgroup), Twitter (@intolgbt) and Instagram (@intolgbt). They meet six times a year and new members are always welcome.
resource aimed at supporting primary school teachers in being more LGBT+ inclusive in their teaching practice, specifically with regard to history education. History is a subject in which minority stories have often been erased. This can be seen through the erasure of indigenous cultures and histories across the world, the inaccurate narrative of Christopher Columbus ‘discovering’ America or the women written out of the history of scientific developments. This trend is replicated here in Ireland also. The recent centenary celebrations of the 1916 rising brought to light the literal way in which Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell was airbrushed from history. Similarly, our history books pay little attention to the rich culture and history of our indigenous Traveller population. The LGBT+ identities of significant Irish historical figures have also been systematically erased over the years. ‘Unveiling Our Past: The Struggle for LGBT+ Rights in Ireland’ is designed to go some way towards addressing this erasure by introducing 5th and 6th class pupils to the recent history of the movement for LGBT+ equality in Ireland. Written by primary school teacher and former Chairperson of the INTO LGBT+ Teachers’ Group, Cecelia Gavigan, it integrates historical content with the development of historical skills
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