Tom Hulme
@tomhulme.bsky.social
Reader in History (Queen's University, Belfast).
"Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" (coming Apr 2026, Cornell University Press).
PI of AHRC-funded “Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation”.
Sec. of UCU branch.
🏳️🌈
"Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" (coming Apr 2026, Cornell University Press).
PI of AHRC-funded “Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation”.
Sec. of UCU branch.
🏳️🌈
fuck, music reviews used to be brutal
October 26, 2025 at 9:39 PM
fuck, music reviews used to be brutal
Monday morning view… @tricksterprince.bsky.social
October 20, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Monday morning view… @tricksterprince.bsky.social
...including Thomas Gibney, a young working-class man from the docks who got caught up in the 'Belfast Scandal' (1890), when a male brothel was discovered in the city... to Howard Aicken (pictured), a camp & enthusiastic cruiser who was notorious on the queer scene even before his 18th birthday!
October 13, 2025 at 8:55 AM
...including Thomas Gibney, a young working-class man from the docks who got caught up in the 'Belfast Scandal' (1890), when a male brothel was discovered in the city... to Howard Aicken (pictured), a camp & enthusiastic cruiser who was notorious on the queer scene even before his 18th birthday!
…and a few more from Birmingham (Hockley) earlier this year!
September 28, 2025 at 10:06 AM
…and a few more from Birmingham (Hockley) earlier this year!
A few shots from Coventry a couple of years ago…
September 28, 2025 at 10:05 AM
A few shots from Coventry a couple of years ago…
Bizarre, xenophobic, fear-mongering post from Michael Deane… head of a small empire of restaurants that Belfast folk might wish to avoid from now on
September 11, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Bizarre, xenophobic, fear-mongering post from Michael Deane… head of a small empire of restaurants that Belfast folk might wish to avoid from now on
my favourite part of Belfast Pride this year was the history-teaching float 😍🤓
July 26, 2025 at 5:03 PM
my favourite part of Belfast Pride this year was the history-teaching float 😍🤓
“would you like the soup or the terrine?”
July 23, 2025 at 3:06 PM
“would you like the soup or the terrine?”
about 70 folks - and not a single protestor! - came to my Belfast Pride lecture at the Linen Hall Library. I began with Rihanna in a Co. Down field and wore my “works as a waiter on a cruise ship” outfit
July 23, 2025 at 3:04 PM
about 70 folks - and not a single protestor! - came to my Belfast Pride lecture at the Linen Hall Library. I began with Rihanna in a Co. Down field and wore my “works as a waiter on a cruise ship” outfit
copy-edits for “Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation” have landed…
July 15, 2025 at 8:55 AM
copy-edits for “Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation” have landed…
the good news is there’s a beautiful and pretty quiet beach about 20 mins away, where I can relax with @aearls.bsky.social brilliant new book about queer men in mid 20th century Dublin!
July 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM
the good news is there’s a beautiful and pretty quiet beach about 20 mins away, where I can relax with @aearls.bsky.social brilliant new book about queer men in mid 20th century Dublin!
the first complaint. The exhibition was literally a hut with no obviously sexual representations; just touching diary entries about love and romance (even those could only be heard through a phone installation). These people find any mention of LGBT lives intolerable, and are best ignored/ridiculed.
July 9, 2025 at 7:02 AM
the first complaint. The exhibition was literally a hut with no obviously sexual representations; just touching diary entries about love and romance (even those could only be heard through a phone installation). These people find any mention of LGBT lives intolerable, and are best ignored/ridiculed.
I’m afraid I have bad news for the author about the current state of UK Higher Education.
June 28, 2025 at 7:33 AM
I’m afraid I have bad news for the author about the current state of UK Higher Education.
after a MANIC semester of teaching, monograph revisions, and Union secretary work, I’m back on a more leisurely writing horse (🤷🏼♂️), and just finished drafting a chapter for our Co-authored “queer Northern Ireland” book. It begins with this tasty vignette from the glens of Antrim in the 1950s…
June 24, 2025 at 5:43 PM
after a MANIC semester of teaching, monograph revisions, and Union secretary work, I’m back on a more leisurely writing horse (🤷🏼♂️), and just finished drafting a chapter for our Co-authored “queer Northern Ireland” book. It begins with this tasty vignette from the glens of Antrim in the 1950s…
An unexpected benefit of examining an art history PhD: the gift of a lovely watercolour. Congratulations to Patrick Hickey for his terrific practice-based thesis on queering the art of Irish painter Gerard Dillon!
June 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
An unexpected benefit of examining an art history PhD: the gift of a lovely watercolour. Congratulations to Patrick Hickey for his terrific practice-based thesis on queering the art of Irish painter Gerard Dillon!
This is going to be such an important book by @aearls.bsky.social - the first to grapple with the everyday lives of queer men in Ireland before the gay rights movement! Out 20th June but available for pre-order at a very reasonable price: tupress.temple.edu/books/love-i...
June 11, 2025 at 8:17 AM
This is going to be such an important book by @aearls.bsky.social - the first to grapple with the everyday lives of queer men in Ireland before the gay rights movement! Out 20th June but available for pre-order at a very reasonable price: tupress.temple.edu/books/love-i...
A proper teaching cover post in modern US history - no 9 months or 0.8 PT nonsense, one year and FT - based in Belfast. Genuinely lovely & harmonious School, and (relatively) stable institution.
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
June 2, 2025 at 4:57 PM
A proper teaching cover post in modern US history - no 9 months or 0.8 PT nonsense, one year and FT - based in Belfast. Genuinely lovely & harmonious School, and (relatively) stable institution.
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Interesting. This bit… I also think the individualism of academic study does not easily translate to the job market; gay men thrive at uni because they’re only competing with themselves & it’s relatively meritocratic, but job market is again like school, with connections, performance, prejudice…
April 22, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Interesting. This bit… I also think the individualism of academic study does not easily translate to the job market; gay men thrive at uni because they’re only competing with themselves & it’s relatively meritocratic, but job market is again like school, with connections, performance, prejudice…
had to get this tee shirt when I came across it today - “fruit merchant” was the gay insult of choice in Belfast in the 1930s 😅
April 12, 2025 at 5:24 PM
had to get this tee shirt when I came across it today - “fruit merchant” was the gay insult of choice in Belfast in the 1930s 😅
until very recently - this photo 2021 - I would have her helping me with the baking when I was looking after her (when parents away)
March 30, 2025 at 9:41 AM
until very recently - this photo 2021 - I would have her helping me with the baking when I was looking after her (when parents away)