The Politics of Memory in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland

Abstract

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Engaging Audiences with Difficult Pasts: The Voices of ’68 Project at the Ulster Museum, Belfast

“…As time passes since the Troubles, and memory becomes more unreliable, what people think happened becomes more important that what actually did happen. The result is that the people of Northern Ireland have a shared past, but do not have a shared memory (Lundy and McGovern 2001). If the history of Northern Ireland is about its past, collective memory is about the continuing presence of that past in the present.…”

International solidarity and ethnic boundaries: using the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to strengthen ethno‐national claims in Northern Ireland

“…The prevalent reminders of past violence make the act of forgetting for the sake of a unifying national narrative difficult to achieve (Bar‐Tal ). Many post‐conflict regions have relied on truth and reconciliation commissions to settle the past, establish blame and facilitate reconciliation (Hayner ; Lundy and McGovern ). Without an official and accepted construction of the past, local political entrepreneurs continue to compete for a legitimized construction of past events that substantiates ethno‐national claims along the ethnic boundary (Hamber ; Tam et al ).…”

European national police systems and metropolitan realities

“…However, a significant minority (known as the unionists or separatists, republicans, mainly Protestants) was opposed to this idea, because it implied maintaining the connection with Britain and "betrayed" the socalled pan-Irish political union (of Northern and Southern Ireland). The last group retained control of a fraction of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland (Lundy & McGovern, 2001 (Kempa, 2007).…”