Talking Stones

Elisabetta Viggiani participated in numerous research projects carried out by the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast on public displays of identity, political rituals, and symbols in Northern Ireland. She has published in academic journals and co-edited Friends and Foes (2009), two volumes on the themes of friendship and conflict.

• List of FiguresList of TablesForeword by Hastings DonnanAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Memorials as Silent Extras or Scripted Actors?Book OutlineChapter 1. Collective Memory and the Politics of Memorialisation: a Theoretical OverviewMemory in the Social World: Collectiveness versus IndividualityThe Shaping of Collective Memory: Present versus PastLieux de Mémoireas Conveyors of Social MemoryPoliticised Remembering: the Nexus between Memory and PowerThe Politics of War Memory and CommemorationThe Memory Makers and the Projection of Narratives about the PastMethodological FrameworkDatabase of MemorialsSurvey of Local PopulationInterviewsCommemorationsChapter 2. The Armalite and the Paintbrush: a Brief History of Memorialization of the Troubles in Northern IrelandCommemorating during the TroublesFunerals and Communal BurialsAnnual CommemorationsThe Mural Painting Tradition in Northern IrelandThe Early YearsArmed Struggle and Party-political MuralsPost-ceasefire and Peace Process MuralsThe 1998 Agreement and the ‘Boom’ of Permanent MemorializationPost-Agreement MuralsPermanent MemorialsMemorials to Paramilitary CombatantsMemorials to Civilian CasualtiesMemorials to Security ForcesMemorials in Government Buildings, Party Offices, Workplaces and ChurchesCommemorative Banners and Memorial BandsMemorial Publications, Commemorative Pamphlets and Oral History ProjectsMemorial Prizes, Awards and TrophiesPost-conflict CommemorationsPeace or Cross-community MemorialsChapter 3. The ‘Landscape of Memorialization’ in Belfast: Spatial and Temporal Reflections‘New’ Cultural Geography and the Concept of Landscape as ‘Text’Belfast and the Ethnicization of SpaceThe Spatial Dimension of MemorializationMemorials as Territorial MarkersMemorials as Aide-Mémoires  Memorials as Sacred PlacesThe Temporal Dimension of MemorializationMemorials: End of the War or Continuation through Different Means?Memorials: still here or never again?Memorials as Identity ‘Crutches’Chapter 4. The ‘Memory Makers’ and the Projection of Narratives of the TroublesIndividual ‘Stories’ versus the Collective ‘History’ of the Troubles: the Power of the NarrativeRepublican and Loyalist Memorials: the Projection of Opposing Narratives of The TroublesTwo Imagined Communities: Creating a Symbolic National IdentificationCherry-picking from History: Opposing Versions of a Shared PastAncestries of Resistance: Manufacturing GenealogiesForgetting to Remember: Social Amnesia and EuphemizationDelegitimizing the Enemy: Demonization and StigmatizationTalkative Dead Bodies: the Politics of CommemorationsChapter 5. The Clonard Martyrs Memorial Garden: Constructing a Dominant Republican NarrativeThe 1998 Agreement and the Prisoners’ ‘Issue’: the Formation of Ex-prisoners’ GroupsThe Greater Clonard Ex-Prisoners’ AssociationEnlisting the ‘Unsung Heroes’ in the Republican Narrative: Local History and Memorial ProjectsThe Clonard Martyrs Memorial GardeNPlanning Permission and Relationship with Local AuthoritiesFunding, Building Materials and ManpowerConstruction of a Successful Dominant Narrative: Iconography, Language and Historical SelectionPerpetuating Collective Memory: Periodic cCommemorations in Clonard          Chapter 6. The IRSP/INLA Teach Na Fáilte Memorial Committee: Constructing a Sectional Republican NarrativeThe IRSP/INLA Teach Na Fáilte Memorial CommitteeReclaiming a Place in History for the INLA: the 1981 Hunger StrikeAdvancing a Sectional Narrative of the Troubles: the Belfast Teach Na Fáilte’s Memorial ProgrammeUnveiling ceremoniesProvisional Republican and Republican Socialist CommemorationsOpposing the Dominant Republican Narrative: Post-1998 Republican Socialist RhetoricChapter 7. The 1913 UVF and the Myth of the Somme: Constructing a Loyalist ‘Golden Age’‘Lest We Forget’: Loyalist Landscape of Memorialization‘From the Battlefields of the Somme to the Barricades of the Shankill’: Borrowing LegitimacyMainstream Unionism, Republicanism and the Modern UVF NarrativeDisraeli Street: an Iconic Cluster of MemoryLoyalist Commemorations in Memory of Paramilitary CasualtiesChanging with the History Tune: the Evolution of the UVF Narrative          Chapter 8. The UDA Sandy Row Memorial Garden: Attempting a Narrative of Symbolic Accretion‘You Are now Entering Loyalist Sandy Row’Tiptoeing through History in Search of Illustrious ‘Forefathers’The Sandy Row Memorial Garden: Attempting to Appropriate the Myth of the SommeLay Out and IconographyRole of Families in the Memorial ProcessRemembrance Day‘What the World Needs now Is Love, Sweet love’: 2007 UDA Remembrance Sunday‘Awakening the Sleeping Giant’: Macro and Micropolitics at CommemorationsChapter 9. Dissecting Consensus: Memory Receivers and the Narrative’s ‘Hidden Transcript’Paramilitary Groups and Local Communities: a Complex RelationshipCoexisting in Ambivalence: Memorials and Local ResidentsConsultation and ‘Ownership’Cohabiting the Same SpaceReasons behind MemorializationSocial MemoryTerritorializationHistorical ChangePolitico-ideological ExerciseChapter 10. The Memory of the Dead: Seeking Common Ground?At Last, a Common Ground in Northern Ireland?         Appendix A: List of MemorialsAppendix B: Emblems and FlagsBibliographyIndex

“Viggiani’s text is a thorough examination of many of the iconic artefacts of a forty-year-long conflict that has shaped the politics and memories of generations of people from all sides of The Troubles. In addition to her text, she has developed an extensive website which more fully examines the quantitative data she has collected… her work will not only add to the compendium of extant work but expand our existing knowledge on memorialization in areas of conflict and recovery.” ·Journal of Anthropological Research“This is an excellent book that makes a major contribution by presenting the most comprehensive study yet written on the meaning and significance, past and present, of the ubiquitous political memorials that mark the urban terrain of one of the most famously politically divided cities in the world.” · CritCom – Council for European Studies“Viggiani successfully chronicles both intergroup and intragroup forces and rivalries, while also exploring the makers and receivers of the emplaced narratives produced by multiple actors. The book is a valuable contribution to the anthropology of memory and of materiality, and it is also a timely reminder of the presence and prominence of substate and non-state agents in a world where it is often still assumed that states have a monopoly not only on power but on knowledge.” · Anthropology Review Database“This is an excellent piece of work, one of the best of its kind. The ethnographic approach, with the actual testimonies, is very well done.” · Jack Santino, Bowling Green State University“This is an excellent account of the reproduction of collective memory and its associated narratives. It delves into the nature and construction of memory and the related forms of propaganda and myth making therein. The inquiry into the construction of memorialization is vital for any scholar of divided societies, nation-building and community construction. The book is important in that it not only describes the processes of such construction but also pinpoints an analysis of the interpretation of meaning.” · Peter Shirlow, Queen’s University Belfast