Making Peace with the Past?

Memory, Trauma and the Irish Troubles

Graham Dawson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Manchester University Press

Published:1st Oct '10

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Making Peace with the Past? cover

This book explores the psychic, cultural and political ramifications of memory within the Irish Troubles. It investigates the traumatic impact of the violence perpetrated since 1969; the antagonistic cultural narratives of memory fashioned and mobilised in this context within public and private arenas; and the conflicts, paradoxes and contradictions involved in 'coming to terms with the past' both before and during the Irish peace process initiated in 1993-94.

The study focuses on personal and collective remembrance within two particular locations: the Unionist communities along the Irish Border, and nationalist Derry. It traces the formation from below of competing public narratives, one concerned with the 'ethnic cleansing' of Protestants by the Irish Republican Army, the other with British state violence on Bloody Sunday; and analyses their subjective roots in specific experiences of fear and loss, their role in ideological struggle, and their complicated relation to private, familial and individual remembering.

Dawson's book… stands head and shoulders above anything so far published on this vexed subject… it also extremely timely…' -- .

ISBN: 9780719056727

Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 22mm

Weight: 585g

416 pages