Gay Fiction, Homophobia and Post-Troubles Northern Ireland: An Interview with Jarlath Gregory

Abstract

Northern Irish writer Jarlath Gregory became a fresh voice in Irish gay writing when Snapshots came out in 2001, a novel which explores gay experience in Crossmaglen – a Catholic town in Co. Armagh – against the backdrop of the Troubles. Since then, he has published two other novels: G.A.A.Y.: One Hundred Ways to Love a Beautiful Loser (2005), which depicts gay life in 1990s Dublin, and The Organised Criminal (2015), where he offers valuable insights into the Northern Irish underworld of smuggling and cross-border criminality. The present interview, while aiming to fill the gap in criticism on Gregory’s brilliant novels, provides a series of reflections on gay fiction, homophobia and post-Troubles Northern Ireland.  

Keywords

• Gay fiction
• homophobia
• Jarlath Gregory
• Northern Ireland
• contemporary Irish literature