Classics of Queer Irish Literature

Classics of Queer Irish Literature

This article relates to Open, Heaven

Ireland has an undeniably rich literary history across a wide range of fiction, drama, and poetry—this abundant legacy includes a number of noteworthy pieces of queer fiction and memoir. One of the latest entries into this catalog is poet Seán Hewitt's debut novel Open, Heaven, a gay coming-of-age story that centers on the relationship between two teenage boys.

When discussing queer Irish literature, a natural enough place to start is with Oscar Wilde, who published a number of works in the late nineteenth century. In his only complete novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), the titular character sells his soul in order to retain eternal youth and beauty—his portrait, meanwhile, ages and reflects Gray's sins as he lives a hedonistic life. While not explicitly queer, the novel's homoerotic undertones are undeniable. During the trial in which Wilde was ultimately convicted for homosexual acts, Dorian Gray was referred to by opposing council as a "sodomitical book"

In the twentieth century, Kate O'Brien was a prominent Irish playwright and the author of nine novels. O'Brien, who was herself a lesbian, included a handful of queer characters in her works. Though hardly explicit, two of them—Mary Lavelle (1936) and The Land of Spices (1941)—were banned in Ireland by the Censorship of Publications Board for homosexual content. A number of her novels have since been brought back into print by Virago.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, Jamie O'Neill published At Swim, Two Boys (2001), its title a reference to the Flannery O'Connor novel At Swim, Two Birds. O'Neill's novel is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that evokes James Joyce and is set during the 1916 Easter Rising. Two boys, Jim and Doyler—one quiet and reserved, one loud and outspoken—meet in school and strike up a friendship that blossoms into more. At Swim, Two Boys received a Lambda Literary Award and is widely regarded as a modern classic of queer fiction.

One of Ireland's most prolific contemporary gay writers is Colm Tóibín, best known for his novel Brooklyn (2009), which won the Costa Novel Award and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Many of Tóibín's works feature queer narratives, most notably The Story of the Night (1996), a coming-of-age novel about a gay Argentinian man growing up in the 1970s. Though Tóibín's third novel, it was his first to feature a gay protagonist. Tóibín has also published queer nonfiction, like his essay collection A Guest at the Feast (2022), in which he discusses growing up gay in Ireland and his relationship to the Catholic Church.

Another notable work of queer Irish nonfiction is All Down Darkness Wide (2022), a memoir by the author of Open, Heaven. In All Down Darkness Wide, Hewitt discusses his own experiences as a gay Irish man, particularly focusing on his relationship with Elias, a young man struggling with severe mental illness.

The contemporary Irish literature scene boasts many additional queer authors and novels. Emma Donoghue, John Boyne, Karen Fagan, and Sebastian Barry are just a few of the prominent writers whose works tend to feature queer themes.

Filed under Reading Lists

This article relates to Open, Heaven. It first ran in the June 4, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.