Laura McAtackney, Oxford University

Whilst the much heralded end of ‘the Troubles’ officially occurred with the signing of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in 1998, it is clear that grand political gestures do not immediately alter deep-rooted societal traumas overnight. However, difficult the transfer from conflict to peace has been cultural revivals are noticeably occurring in previously marginalised communities. The previously disenfranchaised no longer fear to celebrate and commemorate their communities and the perceived sufferings that they have endured. Whilst one could explore the increasingly cultural rather than political overtones of recent wall murals, the advent of Black taxi tours of working-class areas of west Belfast - which endured the worst of the conflict – and the flourishing of local festivals, it is the creation of community museums that is the focus of this paper.

Despite retaining their physical integrity, national and public museums did not survive the Troubles unscathed. With the security situation dominating the public purse for so many years, museums in Northern Ireland languished in the unenviable situation of being under-funded, unsupported and essentially pro-establishment their presentations. Indeed, many museums were forced to maintain exhibitions offensively out of date and those allocated funds often had potentially contentious subject matter neutralised or removed. Amongst this unpromising backdrop, one would expect that the marginalised in society would cease to relate to these bastions of tradition and it is all the more surprising that it is this source that has inspired some of the most raw, emotional and innovative examinations of the recent past.

I will explore a number of community museums located in nationalist west Belfast that have used the ‘museum’ format to order, examine and make sense of their recent pasts. These case-studies shall reveal the complicated and dynamic relationships that local communities have with their troubled yesterdays and will ask if public presentation and interpretation can be used as a tool towards fostering reconciliation?