Abstract
This chapter uses the example of one family biographical narrative to illustrate some features of auto/biographical research in relation to family narratives and narratives of self. First, it is argued that such narratives are networked, relational and internalised, that family narratives change in the course of individual life trajectories and that family narratives generate ‘distributed autobiographical knowledge’ (Bietti in Discourse and Society 21:499–523, 2010). Secondly, the connection between family and the self of auto/biographies is presented using the ideas of the ‘I-self’ and the ‘we-self’ (Roland in In Search of the Self in India and Japan. Princeton University, Princeton, 1988). The family narrative chosen as an example employs primary and unpublished materials on an emerging middle-class family in Ireland caught up in the events of the Irish insurrection of 1916, the struggle for Irish independence, and that later was influential in post-independence Ireland. This Ryan family is also the maternal grandparental family of the second-named author.
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Notes
- 1.
A suburb in the south of Dublin.
- 2.
Sean T. O’Kelly (1882–1966) was a founding member of the political party Sinn Fein. He took part in the Rising of 1916 and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. Elected to Westminster in 1918 he did not take his seat but did take part in the first meeting of the new Irish parliament (the Dail) in 1919 at which he was elected speaker. He held a number of ministerial posts before being elected President of Ireland in 1945.
- 3.
A ceilí is a dance gathering at which traditional Irish dances are played and performed. They became fashionable among the urban middle classes at the turn of the last century as an expression of the revival of Gaelic culture at the time. Always popular in rural Ireland, they played an important role in bringing communities together but particularly couples who would not have had a chance to meet otherwise.
- 4.
Kathleen Clarke was a founder member of Cumann of mBan (the women’s wing of the Irish Volunteers). She was the wife of Tom Clarke and sister of Ned Daly, both of whom were executed for their part in the 1916 Rising.
- 5.
Sorcha MacMahon (1888–1970) was an early member of Cumman na mBan and a friend of Kathleen Clarke. She acted a as courier during the Rising in Easter Week 1916 and later worked for Michael Collins.
- 6.
The Irish War of Independence from Britain ended with a Treaty that saw 26 counties on the island becoming a Free State while 6 counties (now Northern Ireland) remained part of the UK. The Treaty was not accepted by all political parties in Ireland and it became the origin of a brutal Civil War 1922–1923.
- 7.
An American music group of the disco era who had a hit with the song ‘We are Family’ in 1979.
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Seery, A., Bacon, K. (2020). Auto/Biographical Research and the Family. In: Parsons, J., Chappell, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31974-8_7
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