[1][2] Its most prominent leader was David Norris, an English studies lecturer in Trinity College Dublin, Joycean scholar and from the 1980s to the present a member of Seanad Éireann.
She was succeeded in that role in the 1980s by Mary Robinson, a former Reid Professor of Law and then-Trinity College Senator, who later became the first female President of Ireland.
Norris took a case to the Irish High Court in 1980 seeking a declaration that the laws of 1861 and 1885 which criminalised homosexual conduct were not in force since the enactment of the Constitution of Ireland.
The case (Norris v. Attorney General) was lost on legal grounds and the decision was upheld on appeal to the Supreme Court of Ireland which referred in its judgment to Christian moral teaching and the needs of society.
In a 1988 ruling, the court found that the Irish laws were in breach of the convention and directed the state to pay costs to Norris.