My Journey Into History

I'm not exactly sure when I decided history was cool. Truth be told, I think it was always embedded within my psyche. As a child I was naturally curious and always interested in what the adults around me were talking about, especially when it came to people and things from the past. My favourite film was Mary Poppins, which was made in the 1960s and set in Edwardian England, two very different time periods with which I developed a fascination.

My obsession with genealogy began at the tender age of ten, shortly after my grandad died. My auntie was sorting through some of his things and handed me a copy of his birth certificate to have a look at. Seeing his parents' names on that piece of paper was a real light bulb moment for me: I'd never considered the fact that my grandparents had parents. All of a sudden, there were questions swirling around my brain that I wished I could have asked my grandad, so my poor auntie had to endure them instead. Neither she, nor the rest of the family, had all the answers I was seeking, which made me even more determined to find them. In my early teens, with the growth of Ancestry and other online genealogy sites, I started building my family tree and have spent countless hours scouring the internet for information and hunting for records in libraries and archives ever since.

History was always one of my favourite subjects at school, though as much as I enjoyed learning about European history and the Cold War etc., I often found myself wishing there was more of a focus on social history. I wanted to know how world events impacted the lives of ordinary people. This was especially true when it came to studying Irish history, which seemed to have a very heavy emphasis on politics. I knew what the political figures of the day thought about the fight for independence, but what did the average man and woman think? What were their hopes and fears? Something my dad said when I was a teenager intrigued me: he mentioned that his grandmother had little time for the 1916 Rising. Her husband — my great-grandfather — had fought for an Irish regiment of the British Army during the First World War (like so many others), and I can totally understand her feelings on the situation; the British government was responsible for paying his disability pension from the time he was discharged, physically ravaged, in 1919 to his early death in 1940, from which time she received a widow's pension. It was this money that enabled her to feed and clothe her five children, as well as the niece and nephew she raised when their own parents died, at a time of huge struggle and less-than-adequate inner city tenement housing. It's no wonder she was grateful to Britain, while at the same time being a proud Dublin woman. What this family story illustrated to me was that people — and history — are complex. There are often conflicting narratives, and certainly there is more than one way of looking at a person's life and worldview. I wished this had been reflected more in the history I was learning at school.

Later, as I pursued a career in radio and podcast production, I continued with my family history research. I also found ways of incorporating my love of history into my work. As an undergraduate student, I made a short documentary about my great-grandfather's wartime experience; for my Master's project, I made a half-hour documentary about the music hall and variety scene in Dublin; I'm about to start making one (for broadcast later this year) about the Iveagh Trust, Ireland's oldest housing charity, where four generations of my own family have lived. Back in 2016, when I was in the process of planning my Master's project, my tutor remarked that I seemed to have found a niche in historical programming. I agreed, but it was only when I went freelance after four years working in current affairs radio that I began to think seriously about it.

I often find myself telling people that in another life — if I hadn't been involved in media — I would have been a historian. I never even considered it as a potential career path while I was doing my Leaving Cert, much as I enjoyed it as a subject. I suppose I didn't have the confidence to think I'd be capable of studying it at third level, even though I always did well academically.

Now, at age 30, I'm finally considering it. I've been looking into studying a part-time History MA through The Open University, while continuing with my work as an independent producer. Why? Partly because I'm hoping that it might complement my existing skills and benefit me as I research those history documentaries I keep coming up with, or open doors to producing podcasts for a museum or archive. But mostly, simply, because I love immersing myself in history. I always have, and I always will. And really, what better reason is there to study something?