We are delighted to welcome Professor Gillian O'Brien to Waterstone, Liverpool One. She joins us to discuss her enlightening new book, The Darkness Echoing: Exploring Ireland's Places of Famine, Death and Rebellion. The evening will be in conversation with screenwriter, Jan McVerry.

The Irish Times Top 10 Bestseller!

From war to revolution, famine to emigration, The Darkness Echoing travels around Ireland bringing its dark past to life.

It's no secret that the Irish are obsessed with misery, suffering and death. And no wonder, for there is darkness everywhere you look: in cemeteries and castles, monuments and museums, stories and songs.

In The Darkness Echoing, Gillian O'Brien tours Ireland's most deliciously dark heritage sites, delving into the stories behind them and asking what they reveal about the Irish.

Energetic, illuminating and surprisingly funny, The Darkness Echoing challenges old, accepted narratives about Ireland, and asks intriguing questions about Ireland's past, present and future.

'My history book of the year' Ryan Tubridy

'As thought-provoking as it is informative and entertaining' Irish Times

'Hugely enjoyable, thought-provoking and informative ... An essential read' History Ireland

Gillian O'Brien is Professor of Public History at Liverpool John Moores University. Her most recent book 'The Darkness Echoing' takes readers on a journey back in time and across the country as she visits battle sites, famine ships, graveyards and gift shops in search of Ireland's dark history. Prof O'Brien is also the author of 'Blood Runs Green: The Murder that Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago' and is a regular commentator on Irish history in newspapers and on the radio and television in Ireland and Britain.

After getting her first break on Brookside, Jan McVerry found her spiritual home in Weatherfield, picking up two BAFTAs and the Tony Warren Award for her contributions to Coronation Street. Though dramas such as The Forsyte Saga, Clocking Off and The Street she’s traded secrets with soldiers, midwives and prostitutes, and spanned periods from Victorian London to modern-day Manchester. She may not have a History O Level to her name but she shares Professor O’Brien’s obsession with misery, suffering and death.

CPMH Hybrid Seminar

Online & John Foster Building, LMJU

Gillian O’Brien, Professor of Public History, LJMU will be presenting on ‘“Ships, Sugar & Slavery”, Catholics, Provisioning and Eighteenth-Century Cork"’.

Cork's wealth in the eighteenth century was largely dependent on the sea, not so much on what could be fished from it, but what could be traversed across it. Cork merchants specialised in trading salt-beef, butter and pork. The provisions were primarily destined to be consumed on ships taking enslaved people from Africa to the West Indies or on Plantations in the West Indies. Using a range of sources from newspapers, personal papers, convent archives and memoirs this paper examines the extent to which the Catholics of Cork consciously or unconsciously aided, abetted and benefitted from slavery.

How to register

The seminar is free and if you’d like to attend, in person or online, please email Hanna Nsugbe: h.o.nsugbe@2022.ljmu.ac.uk.

In your email please state CPMH seminar 18/10/23 and in-person or online.

Venue: Online and at John Foster Building,Liverpool John Moores University, Mount Pleasant, L3 5UZ

Dublin Festival of History talk about ‘The Darkness Echoing’, Sunday 26 September, 7.00-8.30pm https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/the-darkness-echoing-gillian-obrien-in-conversation-tickets-166303774065