Author: Read with Pride

readwithpride.com Capel Street energy: why one bar became a nerve center If you’ve ever ended up on Capel Street on a weekend, half “just one drink,” half “how is it 2am already?”, you’ll get it. Dublin nightlife has always been about more than pints. It’s about people finding their people. PantiBar sits right in that …

Dublin’s PantiBar and the Fight for Marriage Equality in IrelandRead More

readwithpride.com There’s a certain kind of queer story that only makes sense when the nearest neighbour is a sheep, the wind has opinions, and “going out” means a 40-minute drive that includes at least one single-track road and a mild existential crisis. The Scottish Highlands aren’t Glasgow or Edinburgh, and that’s the point. This is …

The Scottish Highlands: Queer Life Beyond the Big CitiesRead More

readwithpride.com Belfast Pride hits different. Not because the glitter is extra (though it absolutely can be), or because the parade energy is unmatched (also true), but because Northern Ireland’s political and social landscape has always made visibility feel a little more loaded. In some places, Pride is mostly a party with a side of politics. …

Belfast Pride: Navigating LGBTQ+ Rights in Northern IrelandRead More

readwithpride.com Dublin doesn’t just claim Oscar Wilde, it quietly shaped him. Before the wit. Before the velvet. Before the scandal, the trials, and the lines that still get quoted by people who’ve never actually read him (no shade… okay, a little shade). Wilde’s earliest sense of performance, class, language, and belonging started in a city …

Oscar Wilde’s Dublin: Tracing the Footsteps of a Queer IconRead More

readwithpride.com Cardiff’s queer scene didn’t just “appear” one day with rainbow bunting and a drag brunch menu. It grew in layers, through politics, protest, parties, heartbreak, found family, and the kind of stubborn Welsh pride that refuses to be erased. And while Cardiff often gets framed as “the Welsh capital (and that’s it),” the city …

Cardiff’s Queer Scene: The Evolution of Wales’ LGBTQ+ CommunityRead More

readwithpride.com Section 28 didn’t just “happen” in the UK like a weird bureaucratic weather event. It was a deliberate political choice, aimed at making LGBTQ+ lives feel shameful, unspeakable, and, crucially, un-teachable. And in 1980s London, where queer communities were already fighting on multiple fronts (hello, tabloids and the AIDS crisis), it landed like a …

Section 28 and the Resistance in 1980s LondonRead More

readwithpride.com What a “molly house” actually was (and why it mattered) If you’ve ever wished you could time-travel back to a queer bar with good gossip, questionable dancing, and a strong “found family” vibe, congrats, your brain just reinvented the molly house. In 18th-century London, molly houses were private rooms in coffeehouses, taverns, and alehouses …

The Molly Houses of 18th Century London: A Hidden WorldRead More

readwithpride.com Cork likes to call itself Ireland’s “real capital,” and honestly? When it comes to LGBTQ+ community-building, activism, and cultural grit, it’s got a pretty strong case. Long before rainbow crosswalks and corporate Pride floats, queer life here meant coded conversations, careful meet-ups, and learning which doors were safe to walk through, and which weren’t. …

Cork’s Queer History: From the 70s to the Present DayRead More

readwithpride.com Why “Lavender Menace” still hits (in the best way) “Lavender Menace” is one of those phrases that started as a sneer and ended up as a banner. It’s cheeky, defiant, and very, very queer. And in Scotland, specifically Edinburgh, it became shorthand for something bigger than a name: a community-built, feminist-rooted, book-powered engine for …

Edinburgh’s Lavender Menace: The Radical History of Scottish Queer ActivismRead More

readwithpride.com Queer history in England doesn’t only live in big-city bars, protests, and postcodes with suspiciously high numbers of rainbow flags per square metre. It also lives in market towns, seaside edges, farming villages, and those “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” lanes where everyone knows everyone… which can be either the dream or the nightmare, depending on the decade …

Queer Life in the English Countryside: Historical PerspectivesRead More

readwithpride.com Quick reality check: they weren’t 17th century (and that makes it even better) Let’s fix the timeline right up front because queer history deserves accuracy, not vibes. The Ladies of Llangollen weren’t 17th-century at all, they were late 18th century into the early 19th. The couple was Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831), …

The Ladies of Llangollen: A 17th Century Queer Love Story in WalesRead More

readwithpride.com Birmingham doesn’t always get the credit it deserves for being a proper LGBTQ+ trailblazer. London gets the headlines, Manchester gets the montages, and Brighton gets… well, Brighton gets the beach. But if you’ve ever ended up on Hurst Street at 1am, glitter in your hair and a chip barm in hand, you already know: …

Birmingham’s Gay Village: A Hub of LGBTQ+ Culture in the MidlandsRead More

readwithpride.com Liverpool, sailors, and the quiet art of finding your people Liverpool has always been a city with one foot on land and the other on a gangway. For centuries, the docks pulled in sailors, stewards, stokers, officers, entertainers, migrants, and anyone else chasing a wage, a fresh start, or a little anonymity. And if …

Liverpool’s Queer Maritime History: Life on the DocksRead More

readwithpride.com If you’ve ever sat in a cozy Dublin pub, sipping a Guinness and watching a rainbow flag flutter outside, it’s easy to forget that not too long ago, Ireland was a very different place for the LGBTQ+ community. We’re talking about a time when being yourself wasn’t just socially taboo, it was literally a …

The Decriminalization of Homosexuality in Ireland: The David Norris StoryRead More

readwithpride.com Glasgow has always been good at making something out of nothing: turning old industrial bones into galleries, turning rainy nights into stories, turning “outsider” energy into culture that feels loud, tender, and totally alive. And if you’re looking for where queer identity, art, and music collide in a way that’s both political and playful, …

Glasgow’s Queer Art Scene: Nurturing Creativity and IdentityRead More

readwithpride.com Bristol has always been that mate who shows up to the function wearing something slightly unhinged, somehow pulls it off, and then convinces everyone else to loosen up. It’s a city with an alternative heartbeat, artsy, political, stubbornly itself. So it makes perfect sense that Bristol Pride isn’t just a party in rainbow glitter; …

Bristol’s Pride and the Legacy of LGBTQ+ Activism in the WestRead More

readwithpride.com Growing up queer in a small town is a specific kind of character-building exercise. Not the cute “I learned resilience” version you put on a CV: more like the daily mental maths of Who’s in the shop today?, Will my aunt’s friend be at Mass?, and If I wear this hoodie, will it start …

Small Town Queer: Growing Up LGBTQ+ in Rural Ireland and the UKRead More

readwithpride.com When we talk about the roots of gay literature, we aren’t just talking about dusty old books on a shelf. We’re talking about a revolution. Long before the explosion of MM romance books on Kindle or the vibrant community we have today at Read with pride, there was a man in a velvet suit …

Oscar Wilde: The Original Icon of Queer Literature in LondonRead More

readwithpride.com When people think of Paris, they usually conjure up images of the Eiffel Tower, overpriced macarons, and the Louvre. But for those of us in the community, the real heart of the City of Light beats in the narrow, cobblestone streets of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements. We’re talking about Le Marais. Today, it’s …

Le Marais: The Evolution of Paris’s Most Iconic Queer DistrictRead More

readwithpride.com If you’ve ever stepped off the Metro at the Chueca station in Madrid, you know that feeling. It’s an instant hit of dopamine. The air smells like toasted pisto and expensive cologne, the balconies are draped in permanent rainbow flags, and there’s an unapologetic sense of belonging that wraps around you like a warm …

Chueca: The Heartbeat of Madrid’s Queer RevolutionRead More