Untold family stories

On the morning of 5 November 1881, an Irishman called Andrew Gilhooly formed up alongside other members of the Armed Constabulary at the entrance to Parihaka pā. He was there for the invasion, the occupation and — much later — for the farming of land taken from Taranaki iwi. But those events dropped out of the family stories handed down to Gilhooly’s descendants.

Exploring historical amnesia

In this presentation, Richard Shaw, one of those descendants, will explore the possible reasons for and purposes of this historical amnesia, and discuss the entanglement of the small histories of settler families with the large history of the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Public history talks

These free Public History Talks are a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. They are usually held on the first Wednesday of the month, March to November.

The talks are recorded and you can find them at the Apple store, Spotify and Podbean #newzealandhistory.

Listen to previous public history talks

About the speaker

Richard Shaw is a professor of politics at Massey University, where he teaches New Zealand politics and undertakes research on political advisers in the executive branch of government. His publications include The Edward Elgar Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers (2023) and Core Executives in a Comparative Context (with K. Koltveitt, 2022). His work has been published in journals such as Governance, Public Administration, Parliamentary Affairs, and Public Management Review. He is also the author of two books that address matters of memory and forgetting amongst settler families in Aotearoa New Zealand — The Forgotten Coast (2021) and The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation (2024) — both published by Massey University Press.

Join us online or in person for this event