ARA Ireland Diversity and Inclusion Lecture Series 2025-2026
In October 2025 ARA Ireland launched an online lecture series promoting the principles of diversity and inclusion across archival collections and the wider record-keeping community, with the aim of forging new paths for positive change. The year-long programme included eleven incredible speakers who presented their unique experiences and examples of best practice using diverse archival material. Thanks are extended to all the speakers who so generously shared their expertise with the members and kindly agreed for their lectures to be recorded and made available here. Collectively they have expanded community knowledge and awareness of contemporary Equity, Diversity and Inclusion issues.
Preserving Records in support of Truth Recovery in Northern Ireland
Joy Carey - Senior Archivist at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
PRONI has been assisting the NI Executive’s Truth Recovery Programme since November 2022. It was established to investigate human rights violations pertaining to Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdelene Laundries and Workhouses (1922-1995). Gathering and preserving archives is a significant strand of Truth Recovery Programme work, and in this talk, Joy Carey, Senior Archivist at PRONI, will inform attendees about progress to date, experiences of working with a wide range of diverse stakeholders, plus what challenges still lie ahead for this high-profile project.
Joy Carey leads a team working on identifying, gathering, and preserving all surviving records relating to Northern Irish Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses and their related pathways and practices (1922-1995). Joy has worked at PRONI for over fifteen years. Prior to the current project, she managed the Reprographics Unit and digitisation programme there. Joy has a Postgraduate Diploma in Information Systems from Sheffield University, and in 2022 was awarded a master’s degree from the University of Northumbria, in Preventive Conservation.
The Mincéirs Archive at University of Galway Library: community engagement and collection development
Kieran Hoare - Archivist at University of Galway Library.
The Mincéirs Archives was launched on 28th August 2024 by the University of Galway to recognise the different lived experiences of the Irish Traveller community, including challenges the community faced since the 1960s and the importance of the Traveller voice to educate and increase understanding of the history and culture of the community. Since the launch collections, both in digital and physical format, have been donated by the Traveller community and others, adding to material already digitized and available for consultation. This paper will examine community engagement and collection development in the context of this project.
Kieran Hoare is an archivist at University of Galway Library. He had recently edited (with Tomás Finn), Borders and Boundaries: Historical Perspectives (Routledge, 2025). Kieran Hoare has worked an archivist at University of Galway Library for the last 27 years, having previously worked in the National Archives of Ireland and Cork Archives Institute. He has previously served in the role of Training Officer and Secretary of ARAI, was Secretary of the ISA, Secretary and Editor for the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Secretary of the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences and a former member of the NAAC. He has recently edited (with Tomás Finn), Borders and Boundaries: Historical Perspectives (Routledge, 2025).
Waking the Hirschfeld: An Oral and Archival History of Dublin's Hirschfeld Centre, 1979-1987
Páraic Kerrigan - Assistant Professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.
On St. Patrick’s Day in 1979, the Hirschfeld Centre opened its doors at 10 Fownes St in Dublin and became one of the most significant institutions in queer Irish history. Despite operating for only eight years, the political, social and cultural activities of the Hirschfeld made it a key space for an emerging queer community and an important site for the development of queer Irish culture. In the decades since its closure after a fire in 1987, the Hirschfeld has functioned as a site of individual and collective remembering. Drawing from oral histories, memoirs, and archival research, this talk highlights the Centre as a site of ambivalence—a place where queer joy flourished alongside experiences of marginalization and loss. The Centre functioned as an engine of political transformation, housing the National Gay Federation (NGF) and other activist groups that campaigned for homosexual law reform and provided support during the HIV/AIDS crisis. Yet, the Hirschfeld was also a social and cultural hub. Flikkers, its groundbreaking disco, fostered a queer cosmopolitanism, connecting Dublin to the global gay scene while providing a safe, celebratory space for local LGBTQ+ individuals. The Centre nurtured chosen families and built community resilience against the violence and surveillance that characterized Irish queer life at the time. Ultimately, the Hirschfeld Centre emerges as an ephemeral archive—a space whose material presence was lost to fire in 1987, but whose emotional and political legacies continue to shape Irish queer historiography. By celebrating this intersection of joy and loss, this talk underscores the Hirschfeld Centre's enduring place in the story of Irish LGBTQ+ resistance, resilience, and community formation.
“Dear Cara-Friend”: Widening access to a key PRONI LGBTQ+ archive.
Lorraine Bourke and Grace Gordon, from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) discuss one of PRONI’s key LGBTQ+ archives ‘The Cara-Friend Papers’. Cara-Friend has been supporting the LGBTQ+ community in Northern Ireland for over 50 years. This presentation focuses on letters sent to Cara-Friend in the 1970s and 1980s from people seeking advice, support and friendship. Lorraine and Grace highlight how engagement with Belfast’s LGBTQ+ community helped their efforts to widen access to this important archive.
Lorraine Bourke has worked as Head of Private Records at PRONI for over 12 years. Lorraine leads a team responsible for appraising, cataloguing and encouraging access to a diverse range of privately deposited collections. Grace Gordon is a graduate of the MA in Public History at Queen’s University Belfast and has been working at PRONI for the past 5 years. She has worked previously as a member of the PRONI’s Private Records team but now works in the archive’s Public Services section, managing PRONI’s communications, marketing and engagement output. In 2023, Grace managed the CollabArchive project at PRONI in partnership with Nerve Centre, a creative and digital media organisation.