This book explores the psychic, cultural and political ramifications of memory within the Irish Troubles. It investigates the traumatic impact of the violence perpetrated since 1969; the antagonistic cultural narratives of memory fashioned and mobilised in this context within public and private arenas; and the conflicts, paradoxes and contradictions involved in 'coming to terms with the past' both before and during the Irish peace process initiated in 1993-94.

The study focuses on personal and collective remembrance within two particular locations: the Unionist communities along the Irish Border, and nationalist Derry. It traces the formation from below of competing public narratives, one concerned with the 'ethnic cleansing' of Protestants by the Irish Republican Army, the other with British state violence on Bloody Sunday; and analyses their subjective roots in specific experiences of fear and loss, their role in ideological struggle, and their complicated relation to private, familial and individual remembering.