This weekend, Cork city will see its third instalment of ‘OUTing the Past: The International Festivals of Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Trans History’. Although a relatively new edition to Cork, many other cities have hosted their own Outing the Past LGBT+ History Festivals such as Dublin, Belfast, New York as well as several places across the UK.

This year theme for Cork’s OUTing the Past festival is ‘Poetry, Plays and Prose’, with the two-day festival kicking off with its launch this Friday evening February 21, 2020. The launch will take place in the SIPTU Building, Connolly Hall, Lapp’s Quay at 6:30 PM this Friday where there will be a welcome and overview of the festival as well as brief remarks on ‘The Place of Connolly Hall in Cork’s LGBT+ History’ made by Orla Egan. Furthermore, Sara R Phillips of Irish Trans Archive and Chair of TENI will be speaking and there will be a performance of ‘Stonewall and Then’ directed by Sonya Matthews. There will also be wine and light refreshments provided on the evening.

On the second day of the festival, Saturday, February 22,  the event will move to Millennium Hall in Cork City Hall, where the programme will be split into four sperate sessions. The morning programme will have two sessions, the first kicking off at 11 AM is ‘Echos from the Past’, which will then be followed by ‘Prose and Poetry: LGBT+ Voices’ at 12:05 PM. 

After these two sessions, there will be a 50-minute break for lunch at 1:10 PM, before the third session, ‘Equality and Reform: Narrative Snapshots from the Journey So Far’,  begins at 2 PM. The fourth and final hour-long session of the day is ‘Activism, Imagination and Protest: Creativity through Necessity’ which will run from 3 PM to 4 PM. After this, there will be a closing performance, titled ‘Drag Extravaganza’ by Mia Gold and Summer Paradise to bring the festival to a close.

Tickets for the events are free of charge, but attendees are asked to register their interest in order to gauge numbers for seating arrangements and refreshments. 

Similarly, a new series of free events aimed at supporting adults, parents and teachers on how best to understand and communicate with teenagers will be held in venues across county Cork this spring. The GenZ events will complement the successful TeenTalk series, will delve into LGBT+ issues such as the challenges faced by transgender and non-binary youth. The programmes are aimed to educate the adults in the lives of teenagers in order to create a better understanding between the two generations and open a dialogue surrounding topics such as gender and sexuality.