Hunger strikes and teenage angst – the world of @NrnIrnGirl1981
When Bronagh McAtasney from Newry found her 1981 teenage diary she began tweeting bits every day, capturing what life was like back then and captivating readers
Bronagh McAtasney: I wore a H Block badge to school and my mother nearly killed me – more aware than I could ever be of the repercussions. The hunger strikers were our pop band. Their faces hung on our walls, their names drilled into us. And yet, the drama of my own life was far more important to me really
Bronagh McAtasney: We aren’t the people who get commemorated in murals and songs but our stories are important. When everything was falling apart around us, we needed the family politics, the teenage angst, the homework rants, to help create a semblance of normality. We needed the ordinary to ensure the extraordinary did not become our accepted norm
Behind the headlines exists the banal and everyday; ordinary stories that are often overlooked in the official narrative of the hunger strikes. When Newry woman Bronagh McAtasney recently rediscovered her teenage diary, she also unearthed a powerful and under-told narrative – that of a teenage girl, struggling to become a woman, fanatical about pop music, but also mindful of the uncertainty that existed around her.
McAtasney now tweets daily snippets of her teenage diary @NrnIrnGirl1981. With followers ranging from politicians to teachers and approaches being made from TV producers and playwrights, it’s clear that there is an appetite for this neglected story – one that places politics, human interest and popular culture on an equal footing in the mind of a teenage girl in 1981.