An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir June 2018 www.dfmagazine.ie 24 | By CAPT DANIEl AyIOTIS, OIC MIlITARy ARChIVES O n 5th March 2018 a team travelled to UN Post 2-45 in At Tiri, South lebanon - the home of the Irish con- tingent in UNIFIl (United Nations Interim Force in lebanon) - to collect material for the Military Archives Oral history Project (MAOhP). First, some background. On 9th November 2017 Military Archives officially launched the MAOHP, a project initiated in 2015 with the aim of digitally recording memory, oral history and tradition associated with the Defence Forces since its inception. By the time this article goes to print we will have gathered an estimated 170 interviews. The latter half of the 20th century has seen a shift in archi- val thought, away from seeing the archive as a monolith of bureaucratic evidence forming the one 'official' narrative to viewing it as a contested space, characterised by competing narratives, with some dominant, and others subdued, su- pressed or hidden. The job of the archivist is to ensure that all of these narratives find their way into the archive. Oral history is the natural fit for such work by Military Ar- chives, and the memories of people involved with the Defence Forces' presence in Lebanon over the last 40 years are voices that need to be captured. The idea of conducting oral history interviews in Lebanon was something that had cropped up during project meetings and around the canteen table. We all viewed this as a natu- ral and necessary avenue to pursue. The raison d'être of the MAOHP is to capture the first-hand accounts of the people who have been a part of Ireland's military history and our role in Lebanon is a significant element of this. Recording and archiving the experiences of military per- sonnel through oral testimony is not a new concept. While Military Archives has collected oral histories on an ad hoc basis since the 1980s, with precedents as far back to the 1940s, the MAOHP is the first organised, dedicated and systematic at- tempt to collect such material. A lot of preparation was required in the weeks prior to deployment. Hardware, including laptops, dictaphones and external storage devices had to be tested, and a workflow designed to include file naming conventions and protocols for post-interview transfer and multiple backup of record- ings. Consideration needed to be given to the legal aspects of the interviewee consent form and issues surrounding data protection and any potentially defamatory statements that could be recorded. We also had to consider the ethical issues

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