In this episode, historian of modern Ireland and Britain, Jack Hepworth, discusses his research interviewing Irish republican ex-prisoners. He outlines the background to his project, before analysing contested memories and identities among republican ex-combatants in ‘post-conflict’ Ireland.

Jack Hepworth lecturers in modern Irish and British History at Newcastle University. He completed his PhD in 2019, which examined Irish republicanism after 1968. His first monograph: The age-old struggle’: Irish republicanism from the Battle of the Bogside to the Belfast Agreement, 1968-1998 will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2021. Based on wide-ranging primary evidence and 25 oral history interviews with republican ex-combatants, the book assesses political, social, tactical, and strategic differences within Irish republicanism.

Jack is a member of the Newcastle Oral History Collective, and was a researcher on our Foodbank histories project. Working with Silvie Fisch and Alison Atkinson-Phillips, the research has had an important impact on how we understand food poverty in 20th century Britain. Jack is also a researcher on the ‘Preston Black Lives from the Windrush Generation’ being led by Professor Alan Rice (University of Central Lancashire) and Clinton Smith (Preston Black History Group).

• Hepworth J. ‘”We’re getting the victory we fought for”, we were told’: retrospective subjective analysis in oral histories of Irish republicanism. Oral History 2020, 48(2), 68-79.
• Hepworth J. Between Isolation and Integration: Religion, Politics, and the Catholic Irish in Preston, C.1829-1868. Immigrants and Minorities 2020, 38(1-2), 77-104.
• Hepworth J. Britain’s first migrant strike: migration, labour militancy, and racial politics at Courtaulds, Preston, 1965. North West Labour History 2020, 44. In Press.
• Atkinson-Phillips A, Fisch S, Hepworth J. Experiences of place and loss at Newcastle West End Foodbank. North East Labour History 2020, 51, 163-179.
• Hepworth J, Atkinson-Phillips A, Fisch S, Smith G. ‘I was not aware of hardship’: Foodbank Histories from North-East England. Public History Review 2019, 26(1), 1-25.
• Hepworth J. Margaret M. Scull, The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968-1998. Twentieth Century British History 2020, 31.
• Hepworth J. Edward Burke, An army of tribes: British Army cohesion, deviancy, and murder in Northern Ireland. Studi Irlandesi: A Journal of Irish Studies 2020, 10, 363-365.
• Hepworth J. The troubles in Northern Ireland and theories of social movements. Irish Political Studies 2018, 33, 160-163.