Dr Oonagh Murphy has published a new paper exploring life on the Irish Border from the perspective of teenage girl in the British Journal of Military History. The article was co-written with Dr Laura Aguiar (Public Records Office Northern Ireland ~ Nerve Centre), and is a collaborative project with Bronagh McAtasney author of @NrnIrnGirl1981. McAtasney began to tweet her recently rediscovered teenage diary under the handle @NrnIrnGirl1981 – and quickly grew a large and engaged following, with followers in equal parts charmed, and shocked with her tails of ‘teenage angst, boys and hunger strikes’. This article analyses the diary entries through the prism of a feminist reading of lived experience and conflict, and finds that:
> The Northern Irish Troubles (1969-1998) have been the focus of many cross-disciplinary literature and official and unofficial storytelling projects.
> In this paper we take an unusual object of study: a Twitter account set up by Bronagh McAtasney who recently rediscovered her 1981 teenage diary and has been tweeting entries from it since.
> The findings show that the very banality of her experiences can function as a counter-narrative to the overheard (male) heroic accounts of the conflict, adding a female and young perspective.
The article is free to read in the British Journal of Military History, the BJMH is co-edited by Prof Richard S. Grayson and Dr Erica Wald who are based in the Department of History at Goldsmiths.
McAtasney’s Diary has now been placed in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland.