I am a cultural historian of modern Ireland and Britain, focusing especially on the history of sexuality.

My current book project is Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation, under contract with Cornell University Press (forthcoming 2025/6). It covers all aspects of male queer life from c. 1890 to 1960: cruising the city centre for sex, creating communities, reading queer novels, and navigating the tolerance offered by their families and neighbourhoods. I have: written a short article about some of this research for Gay Times (Jan, 2019 - if you would like a digital copy, please do get in contact via email); given public talks on Belfast between the 1890s and 1910s (available online) and during WWII (available online); and written academic articles on Belfast during WWI for Irish Historical Studies (2021), 'small queer histories' for The History of the Family, and international networks of queer culture for The Journal of the History of Sexuality (forthcoming 2025).

This work I am doing in queer history was partly funded by the AHRC (2022-2025) as part of the project Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation, which I ran with Dr Leanne McCormick (Ulster University). Dr Maurice Casey (QUB) and Dr Charlie Lynch (Ulster University) worked on the project too, and we were partnered with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the LGBT organisation Cara Friend, the Ulster Museum, and the BBC. For more information you can listen to this BBC Podcast, watch this short video, or check out our website.

Queer Northern Ireland ran a big public engagement programme. Things to still read, see, or listen to: a multi-episode dramatisation of the life of a gay man in Belfast in the 1930s, which aired on BBC Radio Ulster and is currently on BBC Sounds; an immersive recreation of a queer rural idyll shed, which launched in the Ulster Museum in November 2024 and now staged in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; and The Athens of the North - a creative pamphlet about gay cruising in the 1930s produced in collaboration with the artist John D Ruddy and the Outburst queer arts festival. I am keen to collaborate with creatives and the media, and have served as a consultant or talking head for several podcasts/radio programmes - just get in touch!

Past Work

Most of my work before Irish queer history has been about modern cities in Britain and the USA. In my first book, After the Shock City: Urban Culture and the Making of Modern Citizenship (Boydell, 2019), I used the former 'shock cities' of Manchester and Chicago to understand both the theory and reality of civic belonging. I covered the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, and ranged broadly across philosophy, festivals, re-enactments, youth culture, and welfare. It has been widely reviewed: Urban History, Journal of British Studies, Journal of Contemporary History, English Historical Review, Journal of American History, Educational Science Review [German], Cultural & Social History, and History: the Journal of the Historical Association. I expanded my interest in how cities are governed by co-editing a volume with Professor Simon Gunn: New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe since 1500 (Routledge, 2020).

Part of my earliest work on cities included a focus on historical re-enactment, something which I then looked at in depth when I was a postdoc on an AHRC-funded collaborative project about 'historical pageants' (run by Professor Paul Readman at King's College London). With Dr Martha Vandrei (Exeter) I developed my interest in 'the place of the past' in modern British culture into Voyaging through History: The Mayflower and Britain, 1620-2020 (funded by the AHRC, 2018-2021). For more information on the project as a whole - including our activities and publications - you can visit our website.

My student meeting hours are 12-1pm on Wednesday (during term time) - we can meet on Teams or in my office on campus (the best thing to do is drop me an email to arrange).

I am keen to supervise PhD theses on modern/contemporary history (c. 1880s-1970s), especially on urban belonging and community, civic festivals and celebrations, historical re-enactment and pageantry, education and citizenship, local government and governance, and masculinity and homosexuality. I am happy to take topics on Britain, the USA, and Ireland, but also to explore geographically comparative work more broadly.

Current PhD students

Ryan Marlowe, Imperial orientation: Sexuality and Queerness in British Colonial Africa, 1860-1966 (secondary supervisor, Department of Education, 2025-)

Lucy Wood, 'Energy users or energy managers? Women, Technology and Domestic Energy Transition in Britain and Ireland, 1890s-1930s' (secondary supervisor, QUB Illuminate Fellowship funding, 2024-)

Niall Herron, 'Queer Experiences during the Troubles: The Everyday and the Erased' (secondary supervisor, Department of Education, 2024-)

Michael Lawrence, 'Quare fellows abroad: homosexuality and the Irish diaspora, 1880-1960' (Primary supervisor, AHRC Northern Bridge 2021-)

Jamie Nugent, '"Making Ulster the tourists Mecca": tourism, identity and modernization in the north of Ireland, 1901-1971' (Primary supervisor, AHRC Northern Bridge 2020-)

Tom Ward, 'Queer citizenship in contemporary Britain, 1967-2005' (Secondary supervisor, Department of Education 2020-)

Former PhD Students

Rhianne Morgan, 'Belfast baths: Exploring and interpreting the historic spaces of the Victorian industrial city' (Secondary supervisor, AHRC Northern Bridge 2017-2022)

I was awarded my PhD in Urban History from the University of Leicester in 2013 (where I was also an undergraduate and postgraduate student, 2005-2009). Before taking up my current post, I was an Early Career Lecturer at the Institute of Historical Research (2015-2016), and a Research Associate at King's College London (2013-2015). 

I'm an openly gay man and an active supporter of LGBT+ equality. I sit on the committee of the Queen's LGBT+ Staff Network, have written a short piece about teaching queer history in Northern Ireland, and given many public talks on the same theme.

You can find me on Bluesky: @tomhulme.bsky.social