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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

‘Live and let live’: Northern Ireland historian uncovers surprising era of tolerance of gay men

Howard Aicken with a US soldier
Howard Aicken, a gay man featured in Tom Hulme's book Belfastmen, in the company of a US soldier. Photograph: Basil and Simon Abbott

Northern Ireland carved a grim reputation for homophobia for over half a century, a record of intolerance and bigotry so baroque it was turned into an opera.

In the 1970s, Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and Free Presbyterian church, led a “save Ulster from sodomy” crusade to resist the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

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