RIFNET (Reconstituting the Irish Family Network) is a team of academic researchers, and museum and heritage professionals interested in retelling the story of the Irish family. They aim to champion stories of Irish families that sit outside of what society perceives as the ‘traditional’ form. they recognize that the Irish family is (and has always been) diverse. Their network members have active interests in areas including stepfamilies and blended families; LGBTQ+ families; single-parent families; divorced – and widowed spouses; single persons; sibling networks; Travellers’ and their families; and religious families.
They have hosted a digital storytelling event, ‘ReCollecting the Irish Family’. in which five members of the public were invited to tell their stories through family objects – an object which spoke to them about family. They were then interviewed about the objects to explore the meaning of LGBTQ+ families in Ireland today. These object-based interviews make an important contribution to the meaning of family in Ireland.
Francis Timmons and Darren Lamont shared a picture, taken of them on their wedding day. The photograph depicts them as husband and husband, This is part of their story :
The Mansion House, yeah, so we ended up for a meal there. I suppose the photograph, it was just a day of happiness, it was just a celebration like I keep saying it just a day we didn’t really think would ever happen. We’ve been through a lot over the last 23 years, I think it would be fair to say. We’ve been through some attacks on our home, attacks on, I suppose, in terms of letters we got, different things… different forms of homophobia that we’ve experienced over the years. So it was great, like I said, it was great to be able to… when I look at it now, you see walking through Stephen’s Green holding hands, nearly putting it up to everybody saying ‘look this is normal, this is acceptable, this is the way life is, we just want to be the same as everybody else, just a very mundane, day-to-day life, you know, do the ordinary thing things in life because I’m a counsellor, I’m busy most of the time, I’m at a lot of meetings out and about. Yeah, we just want to be the same as everybody else and get on with life. We have the same relationship that anybody else has, the same arguments, the same… Darren’s great at organising things and I’m not so good at that sort of stuff but we’re good and bad at different things and yeah, so that’s it.
You can check out snippets of all of their fascinating stories here and they will run until 14 July 2027Labels: 2023, Irish queer families, non-traditional, project, Rifnet
