Reflections on presenting our paper: ‘Risk and Agency: The Methodological Challenges of Recording Oral Histories with Survivors of Child Abuse’ in Tralee in 2026
Reflections on presenting our paper: ‘Risk and Agency: The Methodological Challenges of Recording Oral Histories with Survivors of Child Abuse’ in Tralee in 2026
When Ruth Beecher and I submitted our abstract for consideration to the Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI) annual meeting 2026, we were apprehensive. Despite the progress society has made in the last 40 or so years, child sexual abuse remains a topic that people find difficult to think about. When our paper was accepted and again on the morning we were due to deliver it, we continued to feel anxious about how it would be received. We knew that the OHNI annual meeting was a welcoming place and that the attendees loved talking about anything oral history, but would anyone come along to listen to us talk about gathering the histories child sexual abuse on a wet Friday morning? Ruth and I have been in situations where we’ve looked into blank faces or noticed the horrified expressions when we’ve responded to their questions about our historical research. When we say we research how ideas about child sexual abuse, and how survivors live with its impact, have changed over the last 70 years, many people try to swiftly change the subject.
If we look at the history of child sexual abuse in Ireland and elsewhere, we can begin to grasp why child sexual abuse is a challenging topic that many people prefer to ignore. It has been shrouded in myth, secrecy and silence. It challenges our perceptions of childhood as a time of innocence, safety and joyful play.
Our understanding of childhood and the family has changed over time. Childhood is now understood, at least in the Global North, as a period in which children are afforded special protections, and it is believed that children are best looked after in their family. However, the family is not a safe and nurturing place for some children. Recent figures suggested that one in fifteen children in Western Europe are raped or sexually assaulted before they turn 18 and one in five children experienced online solicitation or coerced sexual interactions.
From the 1990s onwards, child sexual abuse began to generate widespread concern in Ireland. In the ‘X’ case in 1992, the Attorney General sought to prevent a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by a neighbour from leaving the country for an abortion. Thousands took to the streets of Dublin in protest. The Irish Supreme Court overturned the decision, ruling that the girl could legally obtain an abortion because there was a substantial danger to her life due to the risk of suicide. The case eventually led to a referendum and a change to the law. Another landmark case was the Kilkenny Incest Case in 1993. Alison Cooper was sexually abused by her father, becoming pregnant by him when she was 16. During the trial it was revealed that the family had had over 100 contacts with health and social care services over 15 years. The father was convicted of multiple counts of rape, incest and assault and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The case attracted immediate public outcry, both at the leniency of the sentence and the inability of services to protect Alison. After this, the Kilkenny Incest Investigation was set-up. Chaired by Catherine McGuinness, this was the first major public inquiry into child abuse in Ireland. There have been many since, one of the most influential being the Ryan Report. Published in 2009, the lengthy report detailed the systematic abuse of children by church and state whilst in their care – rape and sexual abuse were reported as ‘endemic’.
While we are now in a place where child sexual abuse is recognised as a legal and child protection concern, speaking about child sexual abuse – whether as a survivor, advocate, researcher or all these things – is difficult because one can never really know how it will be received. So, when we arrived at our room on that rainy Friday morning, we were relieved that our panel was well attended.
Ruth introduced our project Recovery Histories and the rationale behind the co-creation of new oral histories with adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Our project is the first social, cultural and medical history into recovery from child sexual abuse in the second half of twentieth century Britain and Ireland. We use a life-course approach in our oral histories with survivors, and we believe that the method provides a unique opportunity for survivors to tell stories about their whole lives in ways that are not governed by the courts or the various truth commissions and inquiries set up in past decade. By recovering survivor histories and carefully preserving them, we aim to fill some of the ‘archival silences’ that persist in the present day.
But this is not without its difficulties. In our paper we reflected on some of the challenges and objections we have encountered from survivor groups and support services in terms of oral history methodology. One issue which seems to generate concern is the risk of ‘retraumatising’ survivors. As we argued in our paper, we cannot deny the tension between supporting the production of histories that need to be heard, and the process of drawing out memories that are intensely painful for their narrator. However, we do not subscribe to the idea that oral history is inherently retraumatising, nor do we believe that indicators of distress should always be described as ‘trauma’.
We outlined the procedures which help guide our interactions with survivors at each stage and described some of the practical steps we might take to reinforce autonomy and choice during the process. Many gatekeepers place considerable emphasise on protocol and procedures, but we have to think beyond procedures to mitigate further harm. In fact, over-proceduralising risks making us less, rather than more, attentive to the needs and emotions of our narrators and it also risks undermining their agency and ability to tell their stories in their own way.
Our approach is informed by an ethics of care which centres the importance of building and maintaining trusting relationships and our ability to attend to the emotions in the interview space and beyond. Whilst we acknowledge the power dynamics inherent to oral history, survivor-narrators are as capable as anyone else at advocating for themselves. Rather than pathologise survivors as fragile, weak or vulnerable – which is a risk when procedure takes precedent over care – it is our ethical duty to create spaces in which individuals are recognised as experts of their own experiences. This requires us to be flexible in our approach and responsive to the needs of our narrators without letting our care for them drift into paternalism.
This was followed by a lively discussion, as well as insightful and sensitive questions from audience members during the Q&A and with individuals in that important ‘after the talk’ space. Our apprehensions about delivering a paper about child sexual abuse were misplaced and we are grateful to the organisers and audience members for giving us the time to share our work.
If you would like to find out more about the Oral History Network of Ireland, visit their website.
