ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses cultures of victimhood in Belfast's paramilitary museums, drawing attention to the way that these sites draw on notions of innocence and responsibility to reinforce their own interpretations of the past. It focuses on the intersections between the 'ideal victim' and the generation of empathy, and argues that both chosen museum sites appeal to this intersection as they develop their material for an increasingly incipient 'tourist gaze' in Northern Ireland. The two sites are: the Irish republican history museum and Andy Tyrie Interpretive Centre. The chapter argues that both paramilitary museums are actively invested in the promotion of 'organisational innocence'. It reviews the centrality of the tourist figure to the post-Troubles imagination. The average visitor to both the Republican and Andy Tyrie Museums arrives as part of a guided tour of the local murals, and whilst these tend to be more heavily concentrated around West Belfast the mural tourist has a significant presence at both sites.
