Padraig O’Malley resource now online

The Heart of Hope: SA's Transition from Apartheid to Democracy

The Heart of Hope website, an archival resource which is the product of almost two decades of research by the Irish writer and academic Padraig O’Malley, is now being hosted on the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s website.

The Heart of Hope site contains interviews conducted by O’Malley between 1985 and 2005 with many key personalities who influenced South Africa’s political history; a detailed biography of O’Malley and his work; and a history of South African politics from 1902 onwards, broken up into Pre-Transition (1902-1989); Transition (1990-1994); Post-Transition (1994-1999) and Transformation (1999- ).

When the site’s continued existence was threatened by a lack of resources earlier this year, the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Centre of Memory and Dialogue agreed to host it.

“It’s an important body of work,” said the Head of the Foundation’s Memory Programme, Verne Harris. “The O’Malley website is one of the richest online archival resources for South African history. It makes most South African online resources look a little thin.”

Harris said that it was inconceivable that such a resource could be allowed to disappear.

“That possibility could not be entertained.”

The Heart of Hope’s content and organisation has been preserved without editorial intervention by the Foundation, and can be accessed directly from http://nelsonmandela.org/omalley/

Leave a comment