This article examines the theme of AIDS in the short stories of Micheál Ó Conghaile that explore gay themes. These stories include ‘An Mercyfucker’, ‘As Láimh a Chéile’, ‘Gabhal na gCloch’, ‘Athair’, agus ‘Caillte i gConamara’. This article proposes that gay identity, as articulated in Ó Conghaile’s short stories, might be considered in terms of AIDS and disease. It provides a comprehensive reading of ‘Caillte i gConamara’, the story that most obviously deals with the theme of AIDS and gives a more cursory reading of the other stories.
To facilitate this discussion, the article distinguishes between the reality of AIDS (a biological problem) and the myths of the disease (the common literary depiction of AIDS as a gay disease). It makes this distinction by borrowing Susan Sontag’s trope of illness as metaphor. A summary account is given of the theoretical discourse on AIDS and of the literary criticism for texts that deal with this disease. Often, such criticism condemns texts that depict AIDS as a gay disease. The current article takes up an alternative method given that, in the case of Ó Conghaile’s short stories, it is the fear of AIDS that is of primary concern for their gay characters. Occasionally, his gay characters experience social ostracisation as a result of the disease. Ó Conghaile’s stories, then, are reckoning with the cultural impact of AIDS.
