Memory, Politics and Identity

Cillian McGrattan is a Lecturer in Political and Cultural Studies at the University of Swansea, UK

• Introduction: Remembering and Looking Forward Dealing with the Past Belatedness Haunted by History Irrevocable Futures: Tracing the Dynamics of Conflict Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday Making History: The Articulation of the Northern State Can We Fix It? The Peace Process and the Construction of Modern Nationalism in Northern Ireland Nationalist Politics and Truth Recovery Generational Change Conclusion The Workings of the Past

Memory, Politics and Identity is a highly provocative book. It challenges the 'placating consensus' on violence, victims and the past emergent during the Northern Ireland peace process. Often critical of politicians and academics, McGrattan's work may be one of the most talked-about books yet produced on Northern Irish politics.Jon TongeProfessor of Politics, University of LiverpoolAs Northern Ireland enters a decade of commemorations this book will be a major resource for all those interested in the politics and history of memory. Cillian McGrattan makes a frontal assault on the shibboleths of 'truth recovery' in Northern Ireland charging its political and academic proponents with reproducing and legitimising the self-justifying narratives of loyalist and republican ex-paramilitaries. Using a wide range of sources from party archives and interviews to drama and film he argues that the peace process has been based on entrenching ethnic narratives which deny the sordid and murderous history visited upon the thousands of victims by the IRA and its loyalist counterparts.Henry PattersonProfessor of Politics, University of Ulster, UK.