Tomas Mac Conmara

Tomás Mac Conmara is an award-winning oral historian and author from County Clare. In 2016, he was commended by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, as one of seven recipients who have made outstanding contributions to culture over the last 100 years for a Comhaltas Forógra na Cásca Centenary Award. He began documenting oral tradition and folklore in the townland of Ballymalone in east Clare as a teenager and is now recognised as one of the leading oral historians in the country. From 2008 to 2014, he led the foundation and development of Cuimhneamh an Chláir (Memories of Clare) and was also a founding member of the Oral History Network of Ireland. He is also a former County Heritage Officer and in January 2016 was appointed by UCC as Manager of the Cork Folklore Project. In 2019, Tomás was the recipient of the UCC Research Support Person of the Year Award and was acknowledged for the way he has "transformed and energized the work of the project since joining the team in January 2016". He published his 20-year collection work; The Time of the Tans in 2019 by Mercier Press. The book is based on his over 400 personal recordings with older people, focused on the Irish War of Independence. In September 2021, with Mercier Press, he published The Scariff Martyrs, War, Murder and Memory in East Clare. In 2024, with the National Museum of Ireland and iCAN, he published; The Possession of His Every Neighbour, A Guide to Researching and Writing Local History, as well as well as a publication charting the 125 years of Cork County's local authority, ‘Cork County Council: 125 years of progress 1899 –2024' Tomás has written

Research Interests include: Oral history and tradition FolkloreSocial Memory of the Irish revolutionary period (1916-1923)Modern Irish historyCommunity Engagement Material Culture Mnemonics Traditions, customs and folk belief Placenames and fieldnames My research has focused on the use of collected social memory, oral history and oral tradition in exploring the Irish Revolutionary Period. I have advocated for many years for the inclusion of oral sources to bring about a deeper and more rounded understanding of the period and have personally recorded over 400 interviews relating to Irish War of Independence and Civil War. My Doctoral Research at University of Limerick enabled a detailed examination of the entire landscape of memory associated with the revolutionary period and led to the creation of a new methodological framework for the use of memory in exploring the Irish War of Independence. From 2016 to 2018, I was a visiting Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell where I lectured on the Irish Revolutionary Period as well as the application of oral history in a range of social and cultural contexts. My role in the broader documentation of memory has led to an involvement in several radio documentaries including A Bullet for the General (exploring an IRA plan to assassinate Hugh Tudor in Canada) and Paddy Brennan’s Book, (exploring an autograph book from Frongoch Camp in Wales). In 2016, I was the script writer for Against the Gale, five radio documentaries, exploring aspects of the Easter Rising experience in Clare. I have contributed to multiple TV documentaries including 75 Days, The Hunger Strike of Terence Mac Swiney, Cogadh ar Mná (War on Women), D