Quare Fellas: New Irish Gay Writing

by Brian Finnegan (Editor), Eamon Somers (Contributor), Keith Ridgway (Contributor)

This ground-breaking, sensual collection introduces some of the freshest voices in modern Irish gay fiction. Witty, sexy, angry and lyrical, these writings are a celebration of Irish gay identity, open at last in all its diversity for readers everywhere to applaud.

Genres: Gay

144 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1994

About the author

I am the author of two novels, 'The Forced Redundancy Film Club' and 'Knowing Me Knowing You', which have been bestsellers in Ireland. The latter has just been translated into Norwegian, with other translations pending.

My third novel will be published by Hachette in June 2017.

By day I'm a magazine editor and newspaper columnist.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must be honest - I can't rate this anthology as anything but five stars because I am way too close to the subject matter being an Irish quare male. I left Ireland a long time ago and it is a different place, thankfully, to the one I knew, but when I read these stories I still hear them with an Irish ear and even the more dated and/or trivial stories have a personal resonance which it impossible for me to exercise a proper discriminating approach to the anthology.

That doesn't mean that there are no gems in this collection; how could there not be with stories, ofteen very early ones, by writers such as Michael Wynne, Keith Ridgway and Eamon Somers to name only a few. This is a fine collection of stories on gay themes and if content or setting is dated it is more a reflection of how quickly and how far Ireland has come then any real parochialism. Who could have imagined that Ireland would be the first country to accept gay partnerships/marriages?

Don't misunderstand me I have no embarrassment in recommending this anthology or standing by it
but I must admit my clear prejudices and admit that you might not like all the stories as much as I do.

Bizarrely it was easier for me to find a copy of this anthology in the USA and have imported it to the UK. Whether that says anything about anything I don't know but if it does to anyone reading this I would love to hear from you!

[Jonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things are changing in Ireland, and this is proof of (and illustrates) some of those changes.

[Timothy Juhl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished out my 2024 reading with this short collection of stories by gay writers published in 1994.

Short story collections are fraught with disappointment, usually one or two stories are memorable and the rest, not so much. Sometimes, I feel that short stories are an exercise in language, with little storytelling involved. Of the 12 stories in this collection, there might have been two stories that seemed to drift off course, but the rest were truly wonderful to read.

That these stories are reflective of Ireland, gay Ireland, in the mid-1990s is the big bonus. This was my era, the peak of my gay experience, here in the US. The cultural references may be different from the Irish experience, but the emotions, the loves, and losses, were the same.

Often, I would find myself feeling wistful, nostalgic for experiences that I don't think happen anymore, like soliciting sex in a public bathroom (don't judge, there was something both dangerous and exciting about these furtive meetings). There were a couple of stories about one-night stands and all the hopes we pinned on them, in the moment, naturally, but then dismissed our lover, or were dismissed by them when the morning came. Again, don't judge. That shit was fire when you're 30-something.

I don't regret picking this up and spending a couple days reading it.

[Basil · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fun read, a bit raunchy for me ( not cause it’s queer i literally have sex with men 😭 )

[Eamon Somers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories reflecting the emerging voices of the LGBT community in Ireland in the 1990s.