Interview

Why am I a historian of Irish politics? I grew up in 1970s Belfast, where contested versions of history were literally written on the walls.

Which person in history would I most like to have met? Mihri Hatun, a poet of Ottoman Bursa, who dared to state that a clever woman was worth 1,000 incompetent men. 

Which person in history would I most like to have met? Karl Marx. You’d have to know the right questions to ask, though.

‘Those in power tend to dictate the way history gets written.’

‘I’d like to go back to midnight on 1 January 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.’

‘Great leaders are much less in control of events than people imagine.’

‘The more I read, the more I change my mind.’

What’s the most exciting field in history today? The history of political thought.

‘History is an illusion, as with everything that changes.’

‘I’d like to have met Baranamtara, the Queen of Lagash in the early 24th century BC.’