Hello
Marsha O’Mahony is a writer, author, and oral historian.
My Story
Marsha O’Mahony is the seventh child of nine born to a large Irish family. When she was 21 she decided it was time to see a bit of the world, and set off, not returning for another four years. In that time, she filled shampoo bottles in Sydney, waitressed in a cocktail bar in an opal mining town, attempted teaching English in far-flung places like Hong Kong, Japan and Nepal, and even ended up in Tashkent on her way back to England, courtesy of Aeroflot.
She studied Anthropology & Politics at university, gaining a First-Class Honours and First Prize and publication of her dissertation, an examination of the Burakumin, Japan’s ‘underclass’. She was set on the path of PhD glory, when she won a scholarship to study for her MA in Anthropology & Development. She settled in Herefordshire in 1998 and has two children, who have now flown the nest. In the course of her career, she has interviewed a great number of people, from farmers, MPs, teenage mothers, poachers, bailiffs, nuns, and the last man born on St Kilda. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Country Life, BBC Countryfile, and This is England and for 18-months worked for The Sun’s New York lifestyle desk!
A passionate long-distance walker, she recently completed the middle section of the epic Cape Wrath Trail, raising £1910 for Prostate Cancer UK.
Will Hope
Marsha. I love to see your love of history in its purist form: in the great scheme of things, a receipt from the 1840s means very little, but it’s our past, made tangible and a connection to a way of life that’s gone forever.
Rhys Griffiths, archivist
The raw fruits of Marsha's oral history work have become
digital archives to be held in the archives for posterity. Her communication skills have also been enjoyed by audiences, who have relished her accounts of the enormous range of people whose testimonies she has recorded.
Gary Hayes
Through her project at Channel View, Marsha worked with residents to explore how storytelling and listening
could support a more human approache to regeneration and public engagement.