History Hurts: the challenges of writing a memoir

A lecture by Prof Em Robert Gildea (University of Oxford) organised by the French Department and Centre for European Studies with the support of the School of Languages. Literatures and Cultural Studies.

History hurts in reality, and not least in Ireland. Just think war, revolution, genocide. But history writing is also a battlefield, in which competing narratives and rival approaches struggle for dominance. This lecture traces my own fifty years of battles as a historian – against the Whig history of the Oxford syllabus, against archival history in search of oral history, and the politicisation of my own work in the last ten years. It then examines the task of writing a memoir, in which I am now engaged. This should be pleasurable but it also involves uncovering painful things about my own past, including the fact of my family being on the wrong side of Irish history.
This lecture marks the launch of the French History and Political Ideas Network.

Please indicate if you have any access requirements, such as ISL/English interpreting, so that we can facilitate you in attending this event. Contact: ejarnold@tcd.ie