Memories of Television in Ireland: Separating media history from nation state

This article emerges from a broader project that explores the history of television in Ireland using audience life story interviews. It argues that a dominant narrative persists in the history of television in the Republic of Ireland. Based in institutional sources this narrative is ideologically narrow although it tells a story of cultural liberation. A key example of its ideological limitation lies in the way that Irish people’s experience of British television transmissions has been forgotten. The reason for this lies in historical methods rather than conscious bias. Nevertheless, historical methods themselves can promote limited visons of reality that promote the interests of nation states and national broadcasters. This work argues that a turn to audience memories, as a noninstitutional source, can help to disrupt an unannounced alliance between media history scholarship and the nation state