A short conversation with historian Jason Myers about mapping Irish soldiers’ experience, memories studies, and recent publications.

Area of research
Modern Ireland, the First World War, memory and commemoration

What are you currently working on?
Right now my main interest is in working with mapping various datasets that relate to the Irish experience in the First World War. I recently contributed a guest post to The Irish Story blog that reexamined a dataset of Irish killed in action during the Great War and created a series of maps to visualize that data using ESRI ArcGIS. Next up, I plan to do something similar with Irish recruiting data that’s available in John Redmond’s papers, although this data is on the provincial level and not the county level like the KIA data. Nevertheless, once the recruiting data is done I’ll likely combine the two and do a province-scale comparative analysis of the recruiting and KIA data with corresponding maps.

Eventually, I’d also like to revisit one of the aspects of my book by fleshing out and contextualizing the Committee on Claims of British Ex-Servicemen. I also have an idea for an edited collection that revolves around popular culture and the Troubles rolling around in my head—basically something that let’s me write about Rory Gallagher and Van Morrison.

What are you currently reading?
I just finished The Generation of 1914 by Robert Wohl. I’m hoping to get my hands on Paul Taylor’s forthcoming title Heroes or Traitors? Experiences of Southern Irish Soldiers Returning from the Great War, 1919–1939 soon, too.

Other than that I’ve recently read the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicle, and a couple of books on the Grateful Dead.

Bibliography of recent work

The Great War and Memory in Irish Culture, 1918–2010. Bethesda, MD: Maunsel and Co., 2013.

“The Irish Solider in World War I: A Complicated Dilemma,” The Ultimate History Project (11 November 2013).

“Keeping the Old Country Alive: Cultural Connections between Chicago and Ireland, 1900–1933.” In New Perspectives on the Irish Abroad: The Silent People? ed. Mícheál Ó hAodha and Máirtín Ó Catháin. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.

“Reconsidering Irish Fatalities in the First World War,” The Irish Story (25 March 2015).

“Veterans Day in Ireland,” History News Network (11 November 2013).