#IrishHistory on TikTok: @weirdireland

#IrishHistory content is booming on TikTok – and one of our favourite creators making content is Brinsley McNamara, a.k.a. @weirdireland. Brinsley brings Ireland's fascinating historical stories to life on TikTok, by exploring hidden historical gems across the country. Blending comedy with educational content, he connects viewers to Ireland's rich past. From exploring interwar transformations to uncovering medieval mysteries, @weirdireland makes history engaging for all audiences while inspiring viewers to visit these remarkable sites for themselves. Read more about Brinsley and his love of history below:

Q: How did you get started on TikTok and what drew you to making historical content?
A: I have been making historical type videos on TikTok since 2022 on Weird Westmeath (the county in Ireland I’m from). Growing up, I was introduced to historic and interesting places in Westmeath by my Mam and Grandad and that would have fostered a good bit of historical interest in me. That and Horrible History magazines. What started as a desire to promote my home county grew to doing the same for the rest of the country, and to have fun while I’m at it.

As for starting on TikTok, when I started it was a cultural phenomenon and still is. It is the fastest growing place to get your content and vision seen in a democratised way. For me, it is a no brainer. You don't need a tv crew, producer, script supervisor etc to make your own documentary style videos and they are still seen by millions of people.

Q: What specific period or aspect of history do you most enjoy exploring the most?
A: Between the World Wars, so 1919 - 1939. In most countries it’s a very transformative period and changes happened very quickly, in Ireland as much as anywhere else. The 20th century in general is fascinating because there’s so much easily accessible documentation to read.

Q: What is a surprising fact about Irish history that people might not know?
A: For people outside of Ireland, they often don’t realise how recent the Troubles in Northern Ireland was, and that it went on until the late 1990s. I’d say for folk from Ireland, it’d be the Celtic pantheon of Gods – the Tuatha de Danann, which is very popular these days. However, historians and archaeologists often point out that there is no evidence of what folk in Ireland worshipped or believed in prior to Christianity. It’s not to say that those stories are irrelevant, but it’s not to be taken for granted that they were ever the actual beliefs of folk in Ireland before Christianity either.

Q: How do you make complex historical events engaging and accessible for TikTok?
A: Make them uncomplex! In my videos in particular it’s geared more towards a comedy aspect and irreverence so folk can get the general overview of something, a few jokes, useful info on where something is and if it has opening hours or that, then if they feel really drawn to it they can look up the rest themselves, or learn about the complex history when they visit there. Keeping the content varied too helps, so there is something for everyone.

Q: Is there a particular historical figure or moment that you find especially compelling or underrepresented in mainstream narratives?
A: It is hard for me to call Medieval Ireland a historical ‘moment’ but I’d go for that! There’s plenty of great resources on Medieval Ireland out there, but for a long time particularly during the decade of centenaries (a hundred years since the 1916 Easter Rising, War of Independence, and Civil War) there was a major focus on that period, and rightly so. But it was really everywhere for a while, to the detriment of history outside of that, including Medieval Ireland. It’s easy to think we have a good idea of what Medieval Ireland was like, but a lot of the time our understanding of it is based off of assumptions we get off it from depictions in popular media rather than the true sources so that’s why I think it’s important to study into that formative period more.

Q: How has your audience responded to your historical content, especially younger viewers?
A: It has been terrific! People like having things to go out and see and often historical sites give them this opportunity. Folk also like having a connection to a place and past to get an idea of themselves too, so for these reasons historical content is a broad appeal topic rather than niche.

Q: What's one of your favorite videos you've created to date, and why?
A: The Halloween one where I went to the Hill of Ward in Athboy, County Meath! It was for the Púca Festival, because Athboy is seemingly one of the origin places for Samhain, the festival that inspired modern Halloween. We got some nice footage of the proceedings, told the story, and I love it. It was Halloween, so I dressed up like Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th film series, and my cousin dressed like Freddy Kruegar from the Nightmare on Elm Street series. There wasn’t even anyone else there in Halloween costume except for more pagan looking attire, most people were just in their normal clothes and we just rock up dressed like Freddy and Jason!

Q: Which other history creators on TikTok do you enjoy watching? A: Jane Casey [@janecasey.ie] is great.

Q: What advice would you give to students studying history?
A: History can seem abstract–just pages of dates and names of events and big name characters, but behind any era or event is a real human story that can be more interesting if viewed that way sometimes! Also! Going to the places in the history books where the big events happened is a phenomenal way of making a connection with the real history.

Q: What historical event or topic are you still hoping to cover that you haven't yet explored?
A: Yola! It’s a now extinct language spoken in South County Wexford from the 12th til 19th century. It was a kind of Old English that survived as a weird language isolate in Ireland for a long time. What’s holding me back is trying to contact someone with good knowledge of the language.