A Dominant Narrative in Irish Television History

Abstract

Brennan argues that there is a dominant narrative in the history of television in Ireland. This narrative portrays television as a catalyst to Ireland’s emancipation from oppressive tradition into a liberated modernity. However, as Brennan demonstrates, accounts of television’s role in opening Irish society have themselves been somewhat closed. Orthodox histories rely on institutional and press sources. This dependence makes such histories unintentionally, but effectively nationalist. They tend to overlook international influences and ignore television audiences. Brennan argues for the need to break with traditional broadcast historiography, in Ireland and elsewhere, by employing memory research to explore people’s experiences of the medium in its early days. Thus, Brennan argues, we can create a social history to complement institutional and state-bound narratives.