Personal Accounts of the Northern Ireland Conflict

Personal Accounts of the Northern Ireland Conflict

This section  includes some information on sources of material about personal accounts of the conflict on CAIN. (There is a brief definition of storytelling in the CAIN Glossary of Terms.)

Note: CAIN worked with other colleagues to produce the Accounts of the Conflict archive, this is the main source for information on oral history and story-telling work in the region (and also a selection of deposited stories).

Some items available on CAIN containing personal accounts:

The Cost of the Troubles Study. (1998). 'Do you see what I see?' Young People's experience of the Troubles in their own words and photographs

Grimaldi, Fulvio. (1998). Blood in the Street

Harris, Helen. and Healy, Eileen. (eds.) (2001). Everyday Resistance, in, 'strong about it all...' Rural and urban women's experiences of the security forces in Northern Ireland.

Kennally, Danny., and Preston, Eric. (1971). Belfast August 1971: a Case to be Answered. London: Independent Labour Party.

Kerr, Adrian. (compiled) (1996). Perceptions: Cultures in Conflict

Lindsay, John. (compiled) (1998). Brits Speak Out: British soldiers' impressions of the Northern Ireland Conflict

McKay, Susan. (2000). 'Portadown: Bitter Harvest', in, Northern Protestants: An unsettled people.

O Connor, Fionnuala. (1993). 'Shifting, Complex and Ambiguous - Political Allegiance', in, In Search of a State.

Pringle, Peter and Jacobson, Philip. (2000). 'Don't move, pretend you're Dead', chapter 10 in, Those are real bullets, aren't they? London: Fourth Estate.

Restorick, Rita. (2000). 'Sharing Our Grief', in, Death of a Soldier: A mother's search for peace in Northern Ireland.

Rolston, Bill. (2000). 'Shoot to Kill: Gervaise McKerr, Sean Burns and Eugene Toman; Michael Tighe; Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll', in, Unfinished Business: State Killings and the Quest for Truth.

Spencer, Graham. (2005). 'Stanley McCombe', in, Omagh: Voices of Loss. Dublin: The Appletree Press Ltd.. ... [8736]

Extracts on CAIN from autobiographies detailing personal experiences:

Daly, Edward. (2000). 'A Defining Moment', chapter 14 in, Mister, Are You A Priest? Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Devlin, Bernadette. (1969). The Price of My Soul. London: Pan Books Ltd.

McCann, Eamon. (1993 3rd ed.). War and an Irish Town

McClean, Raymond. (1983). The Road to Bloody Sunday. Swords: Ward River.

White, Shane. (2000). Chapter Twenty, in, Before the Bandits.

CAIN Bibliography
There are other items in the CAIN Bibliography that have been marked as personal accounts.

See also:
Dawson, Graham. (2019). Storytelling in ‘Post-conflict’ Times: Narrative, Subjectivity and Experience in Community-based Peacebuilding, (September 2019), [PDF; 285KB], (this early draft chapter will be revised and updated and is due for publication in the monograph, Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2023/24). Web: CAIN. ... [28646] - [Chapter in Book]

BBC Legacy Series {external_link]
Radio Ulster's Legacy documented the experiences of people affected by the Troubles. The web site contains a selection of 10 audio extracts from the programme.