10 Years On | Seán Kissane: Before Equality

Before Equality - Agency and Power in the Art of Patrick Hennessy and Henry Robertson Craig. Patrick Hennessy (1915–1980) and Henry Robertson Craig (1916–1984) met as students at Dundee College of Art in 1935 and sustained a lifelong relationship until Hennessy’s death. In biographies their partnership has often been diminished to ‘friendship’ or ‘companionship,’ yet their art offers clear evidence of intimacy, depicting each other, their pets, their home, and traces of shared life. Exhibited in Ireland during the 1950s–70s, their work also registered queer experience, honestly representing the realities of same-sex desire at a time when such relationships were rendered impossible by law and society. Seán Kissane is Curator of Exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin, and a PhD candidate in Art History at T.U.D. He describes his curatorial practice as ‘curating the edges,’ producing deeply researched exhibitions that foreground the work of female and queer artists whose contributions have, often for reasons of gender or sexuality, been critically neglected. Marking the 10th anniversary of the Marriage Equality Referendum, this one-day event explored a century of LGBTQIA+ visibility, cultural expression, and resistance. Bringing together artists, historians, and activists, the event reflected on how queer lives have been represented, marginalised, and reclaimed through art and social action over the past 100 years. This event took place in the National Gallery of Ireland on 27 September 2025. It was co-organised by IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. In partnership with Outhouse; GCN; Technological University Dublin; Queer Culture Ireland.