These are the final discussions in a series of events funded by an AHRC Networking Grant. The aim is to promote (and provoke) new thinking around how we record, write and represent the social history of conflict.

The first session on 28 June brings together curators from Belfast, Dublin and London to discuss the process of representing difficult subjects in Ireland’s recent past. We are very excited to bring together curators from National Museums NI, the National Museum of Ireland and the Imperial War Museum in London.

The second session brings together a group of extraordinary storytellers who have found ways to represent intimate, compelling and conflicted lives, each with a singular and significant voice.

The following day, 29 June, brings together participants from previous network events to engage in short, filmed conversations about what issues and ideas the network has raised.

All events are in-person and free. Booking is essential as we have limited attendance.

The Programme:

Wednesday 28 June, Ulster Museum

10am - 12pm Attendees are encouraged to visit the Ulster Museum's 'Troubles Gallery'. Admission to the Museum is free.

12pm - 1.30 Panel discussion: Karen Logan (Ulster Museum); Brenda Malone (National Museum of Ireland) and Craig Murray (Imperial War Museum).

1.30 - 2.30 Lunch

2.30 – 4pm: Wendy Erskine (writer); Gail McConnell (poet); Melatu-Uche Okorie (writer); Emilie Pine (writer).

Thursday 29 June, Queens University Film Studio

11am – 12.30 ‘In conversation’ with network participants

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 3pm ‘In conversation’ with network participants

3pm – 3.30 break

3.30 – 4.30 Review of network findings and next steps.

Participants, 28 June 2023:

Wendy Erskine is a writer whose debut collection, ‘Sweet Home’ has been translated into Italian and Arabic and optioned for television. It won the 2020 Butler Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019, and longlisted for the Gordon Burns Prize in 2019. Wendy’s story, ‘Inakeen’ was longlisted for the ‘Sunday Times’ Audible Short Story Prize in 2019. ‘Sweet Home’ was Book of the Year in the ‘Guardian’, ‘The White Review’, ‘Observer’, ‘New Statesman’ and ‘TLS’. Wendy’s second collection of stories, ‘Dance Move’ was published in February 2022.

Karen Logan is a Senior Curator of History, National Museums NI. She was the Project Curator for the ‘Collecting the Troubles and Beyond’ initiative funded by the HLF and which led on to the development of the Ulster Museum’s ‘Troubles and Beyond’ exhibition, which opened in March 2018. Her focus is on the legacy of the past and community history in Northern Ireland. She has published on these themes and curated a number of related temporary exhibitions.

Gail McConnell is a poet and author of the award-winning ‘The Sun is Open’. She has also published ‘Northern Irish Poetry and Theology’ and two pamphlets of poetry: ‘Fothermather’ and ‘Fourteen’ . ‘The Sun is Open’ was a Poetry Book of the Month in the ‘Guardian’ and in ‘The Observer’, a book of the year in the TLS and ‘The White Review’, and a poetry book of the year in ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Irish Times’. ‘The Sun is Open’ won the The John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Award and The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. Gail’s writing interests include the living and the dead, violence, creatureliness, queerness, and the possibilities and politics of language and form. She is a Reader in Queen’s University Belfast, teaching poetry and literary criticism.

Brenda Malone is a historian and curator at the National Museum of Ireland where she is the Curator of Military History, Arms and Armour, Flags and Banner, Transport and Contemporary Ireland Collections. Brenda has specific interest in the idea of "nation" and national identity in museums, she has curated major military and history exhibitions such as ‘Soldiers and Chiefs’, ‘Proclaiming a Republic’ and ‘The Irish Wars, 1919-23’. Brenda established a collecting area in the NMI within the theme of “Contemporary Ireland", through which the NMI now collects important material culture reflecting modern Irish society and its history and current issues, such as difficult histories in the Irish state, including women’s history, institutional abuse, and LGBTQ+ civil rights.

Craig Murray is a curator at the Imperial War Museum, based at the Duxford historical site. He works within the Cold War and late-twentieth-century team. Craig is the lead curator of the new exhibition dedicated to the Troubles at the Imperial War Museum in London, ‘Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles’. He has stated, “We wanted to show that it’s complex, difficult - and not over. And we wanted to listen to how and why people disagree about what happened, and air different viewpoints. So much is contested, but even if you disagree with what you’re hearing, it’s important to hear it.”

Melatu Uche Okorie is a writer and scholar. She is a member of the Arts Council of Ireland. Born in Nigeria, Melatu moved to Ireland in 2006. It was during her eight and a half years living in the direct provision system that she began to write. She has an M. Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin, and has had works published in numerous anthologies. In 2009, she won the Metro Éireann Writing Award for her story ‘Gathering Thoughts’. Metalu’s 2018 short story collection, ‘This Hostel Life’, was shortlisted for the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards, and adapted into an operatic work by the Irish National Opera.

Emilie Pine is a best-selling writer and Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin. Her book of essays, ‘Notes to Self’, was a publishing sensation. It won the 2018 Irish Book of the Year award and has been translated into 15 languages. Emilie’s debut novel ‘Ruth & Pen’, published in 2022, won the Kate O’Brien First Novel Award. Emilie has also published widely in the fields of theatre and memory studies, including ‘The Politics of Irish Memory: Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture’, and ‘The Memory Marketplace: Witnessing Pain in Contemporary Irish and International theatre’. Emilie is a member of the Advisory Board of the international Memory Studies Association.

The network is examining the potential of sensory approaches - and an awareness of how our bodies exist in the world - to unlock alternative narratives of the conflict known as the Troubles. Using a variety of multi-sensory approaches, we will ask how we might discover the ways people experienced societal structures and human interactions at a deep, often unconscious level. The network is bringing together academics, community activists, museum curators and arts practitioners to explore ways of drawing out, articulating and representing memories of life during, and emerging from, conflict.

Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Teesside University and Queen's University Belfast.

Cover image: "Minda - piken på apoteket" is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.