Limerick author highlights voices who have been silenced in new book
The book draws from 30 memoirs written between 1900 and 1970
IN HER new book, Dr Sarah O’Brien gives a voice to those who have been silenced in post-Famine America.
Titled ‘Of Memory and the Misplaced’, the book draws from 30 memoirs written between 1900 and 1970, works which show the prevalence of intimate and taboo themes in ordinary immigrants’ writing - themes such as domestic violence, same-sex love and famine-induced trauma.
Through the book, the Ballyhahill native highlights the voices that have traditionally been silenced and offers a rare and unexplored collection of primary source autobiographical texts to better understand the experiences of Irish immigrants in the United States.
According to Dr O’Brien, memoir-writing was a craze in the US in the early twentieth century. “Luckily, some of the memoirs written by Irish emigrants during this era survived. They offer a rare glimpse into the remembering mind of those who left after the Famine,” she explained.
“The memoirs I write about in this book were never published. These were outsider artists, with no expectation of a public audience, so they give a candid perspective on Irish emigrant life. I found the women’s memoirs especially honest. They don’t romanticise their past and they don’t shy away from addressing taboo topics like domestic violence, same-sex relationships and the pain of motherhood,” she said.
Of Memory and the Misplace critiques the role of the Irish landscape as a site of memory and shows how the interiority of the domestic world has provided Irish women with the language needed to reclaim their own lives.
Dr O’Brien said: “For me, the book is a reminder of the power of telling your own story. Immigrants in Ireland today are dealing with so many challenges. I hope that one day we will be reading some of their memoirs. I think they will have remarkable things to teach us.”
Praising the new publication, professor in English at Oklahoma University Elizabeth Grubgeld, said: “O'Brien has produced an exceptionally rich and beautifully written study of Irish diasporic life narratives informed by the arguments of contemporary memory studies and autobiographical theory.
"Historically precise and theoretically erudite, this book will be an essential text for scholars of autobiography, immigration, memory studies, and Irish literature and culture.”
Dr Sarah O’Brien is a lecturer in Education at MIC and is a co-director of the Oral History Centre at the College. She graduated as a primary teacher in 2004 before receiving a PhD in History from MIC in 2009.