Deepening Understanding of Natural Resource Conflicts

The creation of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive
In November 2011, Sister Majella McCarron (OLA) donated 28 letters and 27 poems she received from Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa to the Library at NUI Maynooth. The letters were written during the two years leading up to his execution in 1995. Saro-Wiwa had been leading a peaceful protest against the environmental destruction of his homeland Ogoni in the Niger Delta, by the international petrochemical industry. Despite widespread international protest, he was executed, along with eight others (the Ogoni Nine), by the then Nigerian military regime. The letters, mostly handwritten, were smuggled out of military detention in food baskets. Subsequently, McCarron donated a collection of photographs relating to the period, other documents such as flyers, articles and ephemera, and artefacts including a cap which had belonged to Ken Saro-Wiwa and a Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) flag.
To complement this rich collection the two presenters created the Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive. The archive - a collection of audio recordings - is freely accessible internationally via the web at
library.nuim.ie...
The archive was conceived as a useful learning resource both for those undertaking courses relating to social justice, environmental rights and indigenous people in higher education and those involved in social movements, here in Ireland and internationally. It is a series of 14 recordings of those connected with Saro-Wiwa, particularly Sister Majella McCarron and Dr. Owens Wiwa and seeks to provide an insight into the conflict in the Niger Delta and Sister Majella’s work on conflict resolution in Nigeria and Ireland.
Helen Fallon is Deputy Librarian at NUI Maynooth. She has published extensivelywith her colleague Dr. Anne O’Brien she created the Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive. She taught librarianship in Sierra Leone for two years, and has carried out a number of consultancies in developing countries.
Dr Anne O’ Brien works as a television producer and academic. She coordinates the provision of production modules for NUI Maynooth’s degrees in Media Studies, Digital Media and their MA in Radio and Television Production. She has produced documentaries for broadcast in Kenya and Sierra Leone and worked on the production of an audio archive on the life of Ken Saro Wiwa and the activist work of Sr Majella McCarron and Owens Wiwa