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Marc McLoughlin - Profile
As an Irishman in possession of a surname that reveals a distant Viking ancestry it was probably only fitting when life's vagaries brought me to live in Norway some years ago.
But then, a love of history has taught me that such little ironies abound, not just in individuals' lives but in life itself - or at least that "narrow" definition of the word that encompasses human existence. Things in history have a habit of turning round on themselves, shooting off in apparent tangents that prove to have been anything but, and apparently defying logic only to reveal it in the aftermath that is a joy to discover, and (I hope) as enjoyable to relate.
I'm not one for dry lists of events punctuated by dates passing as an historical account. For me the fun is in establishing the motives, the effects, and in particular the connectivity of human behaviour that history reveals - something that is rarely obvious but nearly always revealing upon its discovery. The man who said that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it could well have gone a little further, I feel. Those who remember their history but think it's something that only happens to dead people are equally shortsighted in my book!
You see, history, when you really look at it, is essentially only a selection of anecdotes plucked from an almost infinitely vast source material - all of human life as it's been recorded - through which we attempt to peer at a past that we as mere individuals are not in a position to personally remember. But just like personal experience, collective experience is something we can learn from, and deep down we all know it. That this experience might predate us means nothing as long as it's presented in digestible chunks. In fact, here in Norway I was delighted to discover that "history" and "story" are the same word in the local language, and rightly so. It is an acknowledgement that history is not simply those events deemed worthy of narration being listed off like some checklist of human achievement, it is even more the sheer mundanity of all human endeavour crystallised in the written word and elevated through its retelling. Without that quality, in fact, it can serve no worthwhile purpose.
Which brings me to Suite101 ...
... I admit a bias towards Irish history (well I would, wouldn't I?), but I hope from what I write on these pages to illustrate that history is not "owned" by any sub-genre, culture or branch of academia. Nor can it ever be less than universal, despite the apparent limitation of the material under immediate review. "People is people", as my granny was fond of saying, and history is probably the perfect medium to show just how transcendental that statement is!