Without going all creationist and Nelson McCausland….I ask the question “When Does History Actually Begin”. In some ways this is related to a paper which I am preparing for some seminars in February 2013. The context is of course Norn Iron……..in my lifetime.
Of course nobody like me who was almost 14 years old when John Scullion was murdered (the first victim in David McKittericks “Lost Lives”) in 1966 at Clonard really understood that we were about to witness History up close and personal.
That within ten years….. some of our friends and neighbours would be killed. Or even that some of our friends and neighbours would be killers.
A glib answer to the question above is that History begins on the day before I was born. That in some way everything that happened before I was born is History. And everything that has happened during my lifetime is Current Affairs. But even then …that is not quite right.
Realistically History begins the day before I became “aware” of what was happening around me…the significance of living in a small terraced house with outside toilet in West Belfast, the significance of passing the 11plus and going to Grammar School. The first killings in 1966…..the lull until all Hell breaking lose in 1969.
Somewhere around 1963…..there is…….for me……a dividing line between History and Current Affairs. Somehow the years 1952 to 1963 seem “foggy”….anecdotes and unlinked remembrances. Of course this does not mean that I cannot read books or watch documentaries for the period after 1963…..indeed it is useful to put episodes from my life into a more general context.
And that period 1952 to 1963 fascinates me.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
History is told in two ways. Contempoaneously by witnesses or with hindsight, by historians.
Both are valid and the best insights are gained through an evaluation of both but a good article Mr Fitz
Thank you.
Obviously kinda overwhelmed at the prospect/responsibility.
nostalgia for childhood is normal as i your interest in the period of your childhood. In memories childhood usually becomes a “golden age” when some traumatic event intevenes and creates a “then” and “now”. Not hard to see what the trauma was in NI and the brunt was, I think, borne by working class communities.
Well certainly its true that working class communities bore the brunt and it seems to me that middle class are driving the “nostalgia/remembrance” thing. They want to hear the voices of victims and say that they wish they had known…….in fact the working class have been trying to tell our story for years but now it is “popular” to listen.
Nostalgia…….well yes that always makes the past look better. But coincidently at my precise age, there is a line (The Troubles) that divides my childhood from my Adult Life.
Excellent piece FJH.
I was very fortunate to study A Level History and Ancient History in the College in Newry with a teacher who took myself and others for the former subject. He lived for his subject and made it come alive giving each of us an interest in the subject (Tudor England and Anglo Spanish conflict) I still carry to this day.
I like the separation or difference you have noted between history and current affairs (‘today’s politics is tomorrow’s history’) whether personal or academic.
For myself, that separation came when we moved from the States to West Belfast in 1989 which was a bit mad tbf. The one dominant, over riding memory I had was of the colour orange/brown of the street lamp outside the bedroom my brother and I shared in my aunt’s house. It would be easily visible through the lace curtains she had and used to keep me up at night when I was 7/8 as it was so unbelievably bright and you could hear it emitting this continuous buzzing noise, really quite loud, together with the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead. That was the time my early childhood ended and a whole lot more changes occurred thereafter.
On the point of nostalgia, I must say I absolutely hate the notion especially in its current form. While I can understand looking back at certain events and thinking ‘wow, wasn’t that great/nice’, in its current form in the western world it essentially is ‘hey, our parents did better than us and we should just give up because anything we do will never be as good as them’, and I’m sorry for bringing this word onto your page but I find that notion of defeatism utter bollocks and bemoan it everytime I hear it from someone of my own age bracket. Where are my generation’s mavericks, inventors and culturally significant people who wish to throw off the shackles of the culture there parents created and say, ‘we’re inventing something new that our parents are going to hate and we don’t care?’
Best of luck with the seminars btw, you’ll be absolutely fine.
You will of course know why I am doing this.
And necessarily the paper I am producing will be of a much more “personal” nature than anything I could ever actually publish here.
But at some future date it might be possible to produce a version here.
Genuinely excited AND nervous about actually presenting this.