ABSTRACT
Museums dedicated to the histories of civil conflict have become increasingly common in recent years. A product of the late-20th-century memorial ‘boom’, the ‘personalization’ of the past manifested in civilian-centred exhibitions of war, is increasingly being popularised by grassroots, community-oriented museums. Nowhere is this truer than in Northern Ireland where for years, the topic of the so-called Troubles was studiously avoided by the public museum sector. In recent years, these museums have been subject to tourist interest where, frequently incorporated as a stop on one of Belfast or Derry’s political tours, they are fast becoming an integral feature of Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles tourism’ industry. This chapter offers the reader an introduction to this network of independent Troubles museums and contextualises their development in terms of socio-political changes that have taken place in Northern Ireland over the last decade in relation to the commemoration of the past.
