Oral history interview of David Farrell


Context: Professor Farrell is Head of the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD. He is a specialist in the study of parties, elections, electoral systems, and members of parliament. His current research focuses on the role of deliberation in constitutional reform processes. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Outside of UCD, his current positions include a member of the Stewarding Group of the Scottish Citizens’ Assembly; Chair of the Finance Sub-Committee of the European Consortium for Political Research; and membership of the international advisory boards of the Electoral Integrity Project and Making Electoral Democracy Work project. Previous positions have included research leaders of the Irish Citizens' Assembly.
Description:: This sixty-six-minute-long oral history interview was conducted by the Digital Repository of Ireland as part of The Atlantic Philanthropies archive project (2017-2020) titled Amplifying change: A history of the Atlantic Philanthropies on the island of Ireland in 2020., In this interview David Farrell talks about his career leading up to his professorship at UCD. He talks about his collaboration with fellow political scientists Elaine Byrne, Eoin O’Malley, and Jane Suiter to bring about political reform and greater involvement of the citizens in the political process. He describes the origins of the ‘We the Citizens’, a democratic participatory project to ignite citizen involvement in democracy in Ireland. He describes meetings which were held all over Ireland with members of the public. David explains how the idea of a Citizen Assembly was adopted by the government of Fine Gael and Labour parties in 2012 in the form of the Convention on the Constitution., and This recording contains the personal views of the participants, they do not reflect the views of the DRI.
Type:: audio and oral histories (literary works)
Creator:: Digital Repository of Ireland, 2015 -
Subject:: Curated collection--Oral histories, Curated collection--Communities, Curated collection--Citizen participation, Atlantic Philanthropies (Organization), We the Citizens-University College Dublin Foundation, Curated collection--David Farrell, Grant 18428, Political science, and Charity organization
Grant:: Grant 18428
Grantee:: We the Citizens-University College Dublin Foundation
Year of Grant:: 2010
Location of Grantee:: Dublin
Rights:: Copyright is with DRI and David Farrell. Please see license for reuse.
Attribution:: Digital Repository of Ireland and The Atlantic Philanthropies
Doi:: https://doi.org/10.7486/DRI.2n506p87x