The Role of Victims’ Testimonies in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland

Abstract

The role of testimony is the subject of an old-time and on-going debate among historians, and yet it has been a concern in post-conflit societies since survivors of the Holocaust came to testify at the various Tribunals set up after the Second World War. Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, civil society and government institutions in Northern Ireland have embarked in a chaotic process of dealing with the past in which victims and survivors have a role to play. One of the solutions seems to collect narratives from people who have been most affected by violence for 35 years. Based on local initiatives, this article aims at questioning the role and impact of these accounts in a post-conflict context to build a sustainable peace.