Bronagh McAtasney is the daughter of John Bosco McAtasney, a master weaver and the last hand loom weaver in Ireland. She recalls his curiosity, his desire to learn, and his passion to instill the same in his children. When he passed away in 2018, Bronagh used her small inheritance to leave her job in administration, go back to school for a master’s degree in public history and now, in her own words, “I’m actually getting paid to be nosy about people’s lives.”

Growing up during the Troubles, Bronagh kept a diary that weaves the threads of daily headlines and historical trauma with the day-to-day realities of life as a 13-year-old girl in Northern Ireland. In 2013, she started sharing her diary posts daily on Twitter (and now BlueSky) as a way to document and juxtapose the geopolitical realities with her personal experience.

Credits:

Photos and text, John Noltner
Field production, summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin Imai
Audio Engineering, Razik Saifullah

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