Queer gan teanga, queer gan anam: The intersection of Irish-speaking and LGBTQIA+ communities in Northern Ireland

We present a statistical analysis of LGBTQIA+ and Irish-speaking communities within Northern Ireland, using the 2021 Northern Ireland Census responses. We find a strong positive correlation between memberships of these communities <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mrow> <mml:mspace width=".1em"/> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≪</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> , with LGBTQIA+ individuals being 38 . 0% more likely to report some proficiency with Irish than straight individuals, and Irish speakers 54 . 4% more likely to identify as LGBTQIA+ than non-Irish-speakers. Restricting ‘Irish-speaker’ to responses indicating a higher level of fluency, these figures rise to 62 . 5% and 74 . 3% respectively. We investigate whether the membership of the Irish-speaking community is simply a proxy for the national community background, using responses to the census question ‘Religion or Religion Brought Up In’. Repeating the analysis on Catholic-only and Protestant-only populations, we identify a strong positive correlation in each <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mrow> <mml:mspace width=".1em"/> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≪</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> and conclude that the observed effect cannot be explained solely by Irish-language ability acting as a proxy for the community background. We propose that the origin of this relationship lies with the counter-culture aspects of each community. Approximating counter-cultural perception of Irish-language usage via the prevalence of the response ‘No Ability in Irish’, we validate ( p &lt; 0 . 001) the link between the perceived counter-cultural nature of Irish-speaking with dual-membership in the Irish-speaking and LGBTQIA+ communities.