The Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform was an organisation set up to campaign for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland in the 1970s. Its most prominent leader was David Norris, an english language lecturer in Trinity College Dublin, Joycean scholar and from the 1980s to the present a member of Seanad Éireann, the Irish Senate.
Its first legal advisor was Mary McAleese, Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin, who also later acted as a media advisor to the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops. She is currrently President of Ireland, having been elected in 1997. After she left the campaign to become a journalist with Radio Telifís Éireann, Ireland's national media broadcaster, she was succeeded by Mary Robinson, a former Reid Professor of Law and member of Seanad Éireann, who was elected President of Ireland in 1990.
Homosexuality was finally decriminalised in 1993 by the Fianna Fáil/Labour under then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. An equal age of consent was provided for homsexuals and heterosexuals alike.
See gay rights movement.
