As part of my PhD research, I am examining memory narratives of women who experienced the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the cultural representations of such narratives. In this paper, I seek to examine memory narratives that are presented in a documentary series entitled Mad, Bad and Dangerous – A Celebration of 'Difficult' Women. The series is created, directed and produced by Emma O'Grady, an artist who makes work inspired by 'true events, real lives and shared histories'. Her aim of the documentary series was to 'pay tribute to these extraordinary women, to create a space for them to speak publicly with their peers and ultimately learn from them how to become more difficult.' This paper seeks to examine what their life memories can reveal of the wider experiences of women during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In each episode, two Irish women over the age of 70 sit down together, usually at a table in one of their homes, and interview one another about their lives. The viewer is able to witness two women reflecting on one another's life histories, from the perspective of them both being in later stages of their lives. As they speak to one another about their childhoods, careers and personal lives, they also reveal insights into Irish history over the last 70 years.
I am going to focus on two particular episodes of Mad, Bad and Dangerous. They are 'Episode 1', featuring Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and Lelia Doolan, and 'Episode 4', featuring Lelia Doolan and Nell McCafferty. Both Bernadette and Nell are women who grew up in Northern Ireland and who experienced the Troubles. They were both born in the 1940s, and the 30 years of armed conflict saw them through from young girls to women. Both women became prominent figures and were active in civil rights campaigns throughout their careers. The interviews offer valuable insights into women's participation in the Troubles as well as their everyday experiences of the conflict
In these interviews, there are numerous convergences. The interviews show two lives with differing perspectives converging. The casual format of the interview often means that memories and their telling of them converge together, with both women co-constructing memory narratives together. The interviews show perspectives from a woman who is from below the Irish border and two women from above the border, and how this geographical difference causes perspectives and memories to both converge and diverge at different points. The stories also reveal many convergences within them. Often memories between the two episodes converge, with the same people and places appearing in both interviews but in different ways. This paper seeks to interrogate these convergences and divergences in the constructed memory narratives in Mad, Bad and Dangerous and to consider what they can contribute to developing an analysis of women and the Troubles.
